Customer traction and sales closing are two of the parameters that indicate that a company is having good results. However, there are times when a customer has already traveled all the way to your store, chosen your products and in the end you lose him because his payment is rejected.
This was what Roberto Kafati experienced four years ago when he wanted to buy a movie ticket online. “I used to work at McKinsey as an expert digital payments consultant. I entered a complicated page that asked me for a large amount of data. Then, I put the card and it didn’t go through, I put another one and it didn’t either. So I had to go to the cinema so that they would sell me a ticket in person, ”he recalls.
That is how he decided to develop DEUNA, a startup that seeks to offer a “magical experience” for users and, therefore, generate growth in sales for businesses. The company currently has operations in Colombia, Ecuador, Chile and Mexico, where it serves clients such as KFC, Cinnabon, Dunkin Donuts, Dominos, Wendys, among others.
Ecommerce in Mexico represents a great opportunity for business growth. According to the Mexican Association of Online Sales (AMVO), this sector reached 401.3 billion pesos in 2021, with a growth of 27% compared to 2020.
Due to the confinement in 2020, the effectiveness and dependence on digital purchase channels was consolidated, in addition to the advantages it represents, such as: saving time, avoiding transfers to stores, offers or discounts, as well as the availability of products that They are not found on the physical drives.
However, for e-commerce to continue to consolidate and online transactions to continue to grow, it is necessary to provide the best service and a unique shopping experience. “This will only be possible if the main challenges of each business are first identified and solutions are provided”, warns Roberto.
Roberto, CEO of DEUNA and his partner, José María Serrano, Chief Revenue Officer (CRO), identified three important challenges for e-commerce: customer conversion, payment acceptance and fraud reduction.
We have identified that purchases through ecommerce often do not materialize due to processes that can be confusing and lengthy. This means that 80% of shopping carts are abandoned before the sale is finalized.
José María Serrano, Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) DEUNA.
And it is that some pages ask the consumer for a lot of information when they want to buy, even when a previous purchase has already been made, which represents an unsatisfactory purchase.
Financial intelligence that facilitates decision making
AMVO data indicates that only 56% of online payments in Mexico are accepted. This figure contrasts with what happens in the United States, where 97% of online payments are accepted. “This has to do with infrastructure and the fragmentation of buyers, there there are three, while here you have between five and six,” explains Roberto. “Since you don’t have real-time analytics, this is where fragmentation causes an acceptance problem.”
It is as if the transactions had to go through a greater number of pipes, until finding the one that accepts the operation. This situation is aggravated by the increase in fraud. Mexico is the country with the highest growth in fraud in the region, with 240%, which causes banks to be more restrictive with their rules, explain the entrepreneurs.
And it is that the user also wants to be sure that the security levels to authenticate the purchases are the best. An investigation by AMVO found that 45% of those surveyed would like to be sure that the security levels to authenticate purchases were better.
For this reason, DEUNA developed a specific anti-fraud engine for e-commerce, which provides security to both businesses and users..
service on demand
To generate that “magical shopping experience” DEUNA developed an ecosystem of Saas products (Software as a service), which they call One-Click Checkout. It is about the integration of three innovations in a single product and that allows paying in a single step through an orchestrator that integrates the main means of payment, which increases the acceptance of purchases considerably and therefore, the satisfaction of customers. customers.
A brand that decides to use DEUNA has all the gateways in Mexico and alternative payments integrated in a single click. “For example, Domino’s instead of having its 20 developers integrate code to add to each gateway, it just integrates with us and puts its 20 developers to make the pizzas deliver better. So we help them improve their value proposition and focus their resources”, explains Roberto. Additionally, through analytics DEUNA can tell companies which are the most prevalent means of payment according to their segment.
Talent is everywhere
DEUNA was founded in Stanford and began to have simultaneous operations in Ecuador and Colombia three years ago. It was KFC who gave it the vote of confidence and thanks to this client the startup began its expansion at the regional level. “Three months later, KFC asks us to open in Chile and then at the beginning of this year due to the market opportunity in Mexico,” recalls José María.
Most of the customers are large food and retail chains. “This is a problem that no one can solve,” says José María. How do they fix it? “We have 13 technology leaders who built products from scratch on short notice. At the beginning we were 95% engineers and then we quickly grew remotely”.
The challenge is to create a strong team that works towards the same goal. Currently there are 130 people distributed in 16 countries. In addition, 57 more engineers are being added. How do you achieve team cohesion? “At first we worked late with them and did everything together. Today it is a very strong group of shareholders in DEUNA, the culture that was created with them is very special and each one knows how to manage teams very well”, says Roberto.
With the growth of the team, the entrepreneurs decided to invest in hiring a specialist in hybrid culture and professional development. They established career plans and semi-annual evaluations, in addition to implementing better communication practices to give feedback, identify what the person wants to grow in and develop soft skills through training and standardization of processes.
The main challenges they see in remote work are three:
- How we do onboarding, that is, how you become familiar with the company.
- How do you assimilate that the people you work on the computer are real people with emotions and families.
- How do you feel with a partner, distant, close? because in text everything can be misinterpreted.
The focus for growth is on the team: “The most important thing in a company is talent, because talent creates the product, the product brings customers and the customers are the ones that are monetized, but what you are really monetizing is the talent”, concludes Roberto.
Marisol Garcia Fuentes Editorial Director Emprende and Emprendedor.com. I am motivated by stories of tenacity and innovation.