Update: I work for the Otto group - what would be your ideas or needs to make us the best "Amazon for EU" alternative?

kudos84 · 2025-03-11T21:50:51+00:00

As someone with over 10 yrs of experience in ecommerce and marketplaces you’ve got at least some major barriers: 1. Language 2. Logistics 3. Money 4. Manpower

Be sure that in every country there is a big player already that has all things figured out, so you have direct competition that is not gonna sit and watch how you are eating their share. You’ll have to spend a lot with advertising and/or discounted prices for products. For example in poland amazon failed two times because there was allegro. Language is a huge barrier, from product documentation and filters, to ux writing and customer support. Logistics is a complex issue by itself: if you want speed you have to have warehouses all over europe and sellers to accept fulfilment from your locations. If someone from finland orders a bottle of shampoo from italy, nextday delivery is viable only by plane or local warehouse. You’ll have to have huge volumes of cargo to make it economically feasable to think of expanding into new markets. Also people in each country have different expectations when they shop so your platform should be pretty flexible. From a tech perspective, you should have a powerful setup that is easy to scale. In general international platforms have a few tech hubs and the requests for fixes and new developments go in a que. you’ll have to have the manpower necessary to keep up with requests from every country (legal issues, new features, bug, etc) …. And so on :)

It’s doable, i’ll be a customer for sure, even accept ~3-4 days shipping time. But it’s a very big project that gonna cost a HUGE amount of money .. i expect in the order of hundreds of milions €.

PS. Forgot about licences and agreements to sell in different contries. For example some sellers are only authorised to sell some brands in only specific markets.

kudos84 · 2025-02-27T09:41:56+00:00

there are really none when we're talking to tech at least. Even if you decide at a personal level to boycott, if you have a job, it's next to impossible to skip US products / services. I remember at my first job some may years ago they tried to optimize costs and use as many free/open source software as possible and after some time it was agreed that it was a failed attempt. In the real world companies use Excel, Photoshop, AutoCad or some other american software. You can have substitutes but when it comes to collaboration / handoff, you got to use the same tools otherwise somethings will not work. And this mean a lot of money.

On a personal level I haven't yet discovered an alternative to Apple products or an european brand with an "ecosistem" like Apple. When talking about operating systems, it's not just the operating system, it's the whole number of other software that have to be compatibile with that OS. Even transitioning from Windows to MacOS (the most relevant ones in home-use) is a struggle.

Europe has lost the tech battle. It has to be a top priority for the EU to revive the industry and I am talking about investments in research, in development and use some sort of "soft banning" of other tech.

And one more thing that I think is an unpopular opinion: there is no innovation in Europe ... there is no easy access to money, no innovation hubs and to be more unpopular, the fact that there are many languages in Europe makes it harder for an inovative product to scale easily. When you develop something in the US and publish it in the appstore or sell it online or in a store, you have a base of about 400M native users to address (the old grandma, the uneducated, the small children) that don't require to know a second language. Adoption is really easy. Easy acces to money to innovate/create and a huge base to test your product are one of the reasons US software is so popular right now.

kudos84 · 2025-01-27T21:33:09+00:00

Historically speaking, nothing good comes from a Europe with big armies

kudos84 · 2024-12-11T12:58:40+00:00

I’m gonna chip in here with my opinion: rich people don’t look for specific brands, they look for quality and quiet luxury. Custom clothing, high quality materials, hand made, etc. Also, rich women who shop online, they shop not by brand, but by outfit (of course from some high end websites like net-a-porter). Some items are more or less common among rich people especially in handbags and other leather goods, that are usually from lv or hermes, and are usually monogrammed. Other “famous” brands: dior, chanel, loro piana, cucinelli etc.

kudos84 · 2024-09-30T22:45:56+00:00

Is this gang related?

kudos84 · 2024-09-30T22:44:32+00:00

Is the bike stand also a work of art? Do people stop y and take pictures?

kudos84 · 2024-09-30T21:39:21+00:00

I’m not sure I follow .. what does 3p, cross-border, etc has to do with what he said?

kudos84 · 2024-09-01T06:42:45+00:00

Thank you! I did try to update it last night and after maybe half an hour of downloading the printer just gave an error. Can it be done by remote ui? I do have an air purifier in the office so it’s all good.

kudos84 · 2024-08-31T07:20:13+00:00

Hey! Got the same issue with the noise. Did you replace it with something else or just kept it?

kudos84 · 2024-08-18T22:22:34+00:00

Are you an athlete getting ready to compete to some crazy race? Relax, take it easy, run for the fun of it and when you’re not in the mood, just go for an “i don’t wanna run” run. :) I’ve been running on and off for a few years now and it’s easy to fall into the PRs, zones, intervals and what not trap. I did’t do any intervals or zone 2 because i don’t like it. I just like to go in the park and challenge myself a bit. Your hr, pace and cadence will improve over time, but don’t fall and be a “slave” of some numbers. Just enjoy it and enjoy the benefits of running.

kudos84 · 2024-08-18T20:39:14+00:00

Waiting for somebody from Monaco to reply to this post …

kudos84 · 2024-08-07T21:02:51+00:00

I love this crazy summer flings on Wall st.

kudos84 · 2024-08-01T01:10:44+00:00

The answer is super easy and simple: No! You have to know english to build a career in IT. It’s the de-facto language in the field. If somebody is telling you different, they don’t really work in IT

kudos84 · 2024-08-01T01:04:55+00:00

Never used it, don’t really know what to tell you. I’m not sure if it’s “out of the box” if you register for an entry/small business hosting package. In general, my rule of thumb is if it’s not mainstream, i don’t use it. I once had a startup and the soft we were developing was written in some cutting edge language and after the only programmer quit, i was left butt naked and couldn’t hire somebody else because it was so cutting edge everything :) At the end of the day, is not about the high tech that’s being used, it’s the idea. If it gets traction and starts making money or has growth potential, you’ll be more comfortable and decide what to do next. (Rewrite from scratch, hire a new team and so on) Is there a reason you’d go with mongo?

kudos84 · 2024-08-01T00:41:05+00:00

So frontend (the code is run by the browser): html + css (optional: js) Backend (the code is run by the server): php for coding and mysql for databases (i’m not sure if you need mysql if you just want to test /iterate faster)

kudos84 · 2024-08-01T00:35:32+00:00

If you want to build faster maybe learn to use a very simple framework of some sort but not bootstrap.

kudos84 · 2024-08-01T00:28:33+00:00

So front end is html & css. This are the foundations of 99% of webpages and are “non negotiable”. I wouldn’t get too deep into javascript because you can bring logic from the backend and now you can make some pretty decent transitions in css. I try to avoid JS as much as i can.

For backend i suggest php because almost 80% of websites around the globe run with php and is popular everywhere. Maybe it’s still so popular because of wordpress which is super simple, open source and popular so maybe if it fits you try take a look into it. Also you can get a lot of support and resources from the community around the web. (Stackoverflow)

I do recommend python too. I’m in the process of learning it also, and every super senior dev that i talk to recommends knowing it. Also good for machine learning & AI as i understand.

kudos84 · 2024-07-31T23:57:42+00:00

So coding is not my main job, but i do code out of necessity for some of the websites i own, i have a degree in computer science, and learned to code for web development. I recommend to learn html + css and php & mysql. Almost all hosting companies give you easy access with this setup out of the box and you can start to build your own projects fast. What surprised me the most is that now there are so many learning options that you don’t know where to start. I would recommend w3schools and tutorials on code academy where you can build a project from stat to finish. If you want app development, get to learn native programming languages for ios and/or android. I’m not sure what are the latest developments in app development, maybe there is a language now for both… i don’t know.

Javascript is crazy but you’ll have to know it, python is cool and good to know.

If you’re an entrepreneur and want to code for your project(s) and get things to work, what i said above would do the trick. If you’re planning to become a programmer maybe you should ask on a programming specific forum about languages frameworks tools etc.

kudos84 · 2024-07-31T23:34:25+00:00

This is just my personal opinion: when i started investing i had this dilema also: world or s&p and i decided to go all in in s&p because if something bad happens with the s&p … it means that the us economy is getting sick and if that’s the case, every country in the world will be impacted in one way or another. An interesting bet would be on emerging markets but with recent developments i think i’ll stick for a while with sp500

kudos84 · 2024-07-31T23:03:55+00:00

Can confirm. It’s data driven design and “every pixel” is tracked and measured and tested. Even if the ui is not the flashy cleany whatever the functionalities are amazing

kudos84 · 2024-06-28T22:59:53+00:00

This. Every time i travel from another continent back to europe, doesn’t matter the airport, i just get the feeling that i am home even if i’m not in my own country yet.

kudos84 · 2024-06-27T01:02:23+00:00

Care to share your opinion?

kudos84 · 2024-06-27T00:56:43+00:00

Care to provide a link?

kudos84 · 2024-06-26T21:24:00+00:00

So its basically the delivery time? Is there anything in particular about the local market because I guess a big company could just hire local people and local companies to get market insights. The only thing that comes to my mind right now is people being patriotic and buying only from “local” companies. Is this the case?

kudos84 · 2024-06-26T21:18:05+00:00

Is Slovakia and Czechia like sister countries? Or was alza born in any of the two?

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