dEpurtat.ro, the largest online store dedicated exclusively to women’s footwear, ended 2020 with a turnover of 4.2 million euros, registering increases of 15% in revenues from online sales. For 2021, the company aims to expand onto two new international markets.
2020 has changed the share of revenues generated by the turnover of the local brand dEpurtat, supporting the vision of regional development through active online stores in Eastern Europe. If at the beginning of last year, the two offline stores were on the rise, generating 20% of the company’s revenues, at the end of 2020, their share decreased to 5%, amid changes due to the pandemic context. Although the fashion segment suffered in the first half of the year, dEpurtat.ro ended 2020 with a turnover equal to that of the previous year.
The closure of physical stores, the distancing measures and customer caution in purchasing were some of the factors that slowed our growth in 2020. However, the public’s focus on online shopping was reflected in the number of customers and revenue registered on dEpurtat.ro, where we had an increase of over 15% compared to 2019, said Nicolae Slav, founder and general manager of dEpurtat.ro.
Thus, if in March 2020 sales decreased by 80% compared to the same period of 2019, with the end of the lockdown the number of orders began to increase again, the decreases being recovered in the second half of the year.
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dEpurtat.ro registers an average of over 800 orders daily. The average value of the shopping cart decreased from 140 lei in 2019 to 120 lei in 2020, due to a more prudent consumption behavior, noticed in the entire fashion market. However, the number of customers who placed orders for women’s shoes through the dEpurtat.ro online store increased in 2020 by over 25% compared to 2019.
Most purchases were for sport and casual collections, and the most dynamic cities in terms of orders were Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Timisoara, Constanta and Iasi.
Being a store with lower, affordable prices, I knew that we would not be affected in the long run. On the contrary, we realized that we would gain market share in the medium-premium segment. In October we were already registering increases compared to the previous year, and at the level of the whole 2020 the number of clients increased, encouraging a positive dynamic that is still noticeable at the beginning of this year, Nicolae Slav also mentioned.
Investment and regional expansion
After entering the Bulgarian market in January 2020, starting with April 2021 dEpurtat.ro expands its operations towards Greece and Hungary, online, with a portfolio of over 35,000 models of shoes dedicated exclusively to women.
The regional development on the two markets is part of a broader investment plan planned by the footwear retailer. He aims for operational optimization of the business and the total budget for these investments is set to over 2 million euros, during 2020-2022.
By permanently optimizing the operational, procurement and sales flows, dEpurtat.ro aims to continue to support affordable prices for a permanent stock of over 35,000 models of women’s shoes.
Greece and Hungary are two new markets with greater potential than Bulgaria and entering into these markets will certainly be reflected in our figures for the years to come. After last year’s encouraging online dynamics, we decided to continue expanding our investments to become a regional player in our market segment, also mentioned Nicolae Slav.
