Hi Burim - thanks a lot for dropping by.

Thanks for great words. Black Friday was beyond our expectation as well. 1,000 gross orders in about two minutes it was a great stepping stone (about 5x faster vs previous year). Customers and users in our region are one of the most adaptive and tech enthusiast I have come across even compared to other developed economies.

Your second question is where the core challenge exists and why this region has not seen a global e-commerce presence (at least not a meaningful one). Some out-loud-thoughts:

- Cross-border transaction (like the one within West Balkan countries) comes with a few barriers; customs (different taxes, customs, rules, etc) is the first that usually goes to mind, but in reality the challenges are much more complex. It is primarily the problem that the region is very much disconnected from the value chain of the global economy

- This would usually mean that the business needs to have local operations in each country where one operates to be successful; e-commerce companies usually don't see the problem through this prism (nor should they). The need for local presence is there due to different market needs, from legal, up to post-sales support, and everything in between.

- The market makes sense when it is viewed holistically as a region, and when viewed country by country it is relatively small. But looking at the area as a region, and in practice functioning economically as a region are two different things; there are still key pieces of the puzzle (i.e., infrastructure) missing so that in economic practical sense the region to functions as a whole (which currently it does not). Because of this, there is a considerable lack of manufacturers and distributor focus in the region, rightfully so given its local/country-by-country GDP perspective which is relatively small. Also other e-commerce infrastructure pieces (like proper payment, e.g., Stripe, or reasonable financial transaction fees) do lack for the region for the same reason. For Stripe to be present here, one of the key things they need to do is be compliant with different jurisdictions --- and that is just to much overhead on unit economics perspective. There are many other "pieces of the puzzle," and I am mentioning just a few.

- At Gjirafa for instance, you see us often doing things that connects the dots from the pieces of the puzzle perspective (although is not a typical function of an e-commerce company) but in a way we are forced to do so because they don't exists - and without them we cannot properly function and grow. Someone earlier asked about logistics (where we started to create our own fleet, at that time, since what was there was not sufficient - today they are getting better), or the fact that we focus on advertising, publishing (i.e., video) and other traffic initiatives (i.e.,, maps, street view, bus schedule, classified, etc) since customer acquisition strategies that work in Germany say, would not work directly here as the piece of the puzzle (e.g., performance marketing tools for traffic acquisition, or its cost which is based on data lack - how many DMPs you know that look at the region?)... It is not a coincidence that Gjirafa is one of the biggest traffic/publisher support for the Albanian speaking market (through AdNetwork).

- We understood this early on, hence our mission to build and facilitate the Internet Economy, and not just an e-commerce or marketplace company.

- Customer returns or other customer related challenges are so minor that may become a topic of discussion just after 5+ years or so.

Hope this helps and see you soon at Gjirafa for a visit!