From Bricks to Clicks: Getting Started With Ecommerce With Filipa Almeida From Onport - Ep. 49
In This Episode
If you’re thinking about diving into ecommerce for the first time, you have a lot to consider. To succeed in the digital world, you may need to rethink inventory management, the customer experience, and more. But as Filipa Almeida, chief customer officer at Onport, points out, you’ll also expand your businesses’ reach exponentially.
Why move to ecommerce?
Plenty of business owners are content running their brick-and-mortar stores—why should they add digital sales channels (and make their operations a whole lot more complicated)? Filipa’s answer is simple: today’s customers expect an online option.
“[Customers’] needs and requirements are evolving, and they expect retailers to evolve with them. They expect their favorite stores to provide the experience of purchasing online. … They expect to have the option of going into the store if they feel like going to the store or just having that same product at the click of a button.”
Challenges of going online
Getting started with ecommerce comes with lots of challenges, including logistical concerns. Businesses need to answer several fulfillment questions: do I want to go omnichannel? Will I ship internationally? And the list goes on.
Filipa points out that the customer experience also gets tricky when brick-and-mortar stores go digital. When small business owners see their customers in person every day, they get a good sense of what keeps shoppers happy. In the online realm, it’s harder to tell what’s working and what’s not.
“So understanding how they can have that visibility … is something that really weighs on [merchants].”
How to choose the right ecommerce platform
If you’re considering getting started with ecommerce, you’ll need to choose the right platform. Filipa’s advice? Don’t be afraid to get in the weeds researching features.
She says, “When a retailer is looking at which platform to choose, they need to [ask], what am I looking for? What is critical for my business and for my operations? And then isolate that, try to narrow down those critical requirements … and look at the options available in the market.”
Links
- Connect with Filipa on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/filipa-almeida-0114a029/
- Visit Onport’s website: https://onport.com/
Transcript
Lori Boyer 00:00
Welcome to Unboxing Logistics. I'm your host, Lori Boyer of EasyPost, and today we are going to be talking about something that's really interesting, actually. We are going to be going into the idea of moving from a brick and mortar store. You know, you've had your amazing boutique and moving to the online ecommerce world.
How you do that, well? If you've already done that, how you grow and expand and really just how you balance that sort of mixture of businesses, that omnichannel kind of experience for your customers This is a really big topic. And so I have brought in Filipa Almeida of Onport. Filipa, can you introduce yourself to our community here?
Tell us a little bit about your background.
Filipa Almeida 00:53
Absolutely, Lori. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here today talking about this really interesting topic with you. I'm a chief customer officer at Onport. I have been working with retailers and ecommerce for the last eight years it's been an amazing journey.
I started off in food retail. I decided to move into the world of ecommerce and that's when I moved to Onport initially as the head of customer success and support. And I am now the chief customer officer and very happy with, with this last challenge that I've embraced to them.
Lori Boyer 01:34
That's fantastic. So I'm so glad you mentioned food because one of the things we've been doing this season is asking all of my guests if you have a favorite comfort food. So at least here in the U.S. We say comfort food, you know what that means? That translates well to Portugal.
Okay, good. Good. What would be your favorite comfort food?
Filipa Almeida 02:01
Okay, favorite comfort food, I have to say I have two go tos.
Lori Boyer 02:07
Okay, good.
Filipa Almeida 02:07
Pizza. So pizza is I think the number one choice. Depending the time of the year, if it's winter, I will also go for ramen. I really like that.
Lori Boyer 02:19
Ah, both of those sound amazing.
Filipa Almeida 02:23
I'll narrow it down to these two.
Lori Boyer 02:24
Okay. Okay. Pizza's always my go to as well. So I feel like we can connect and, and we can go out to eat. That sounds amazing. Okay. So our topic today is about brick and mortar and that adjustment to adding and expanding into the ecommerce world. And for those who have already done it, as I said, to how we balance that well. So if somebody is listening, if there's a member of our community out there and they've got like, I only have five minutes, but I really want to hear what Filipa has to say, what are, you know, one or two or three, you know, what are some key takeaways you would want them to remember from our conversation if they don't remember anything else?
Filipa Almeida 03:10
All right. I think the first key takeaway that I think our listeners can take from this conversation is what are the most common challenges that challenges that brick and mortar retailers face when they're moving to ecommerce? What should they expect? And what is it that many of them have faced when doing this move?
Also. What strategies can they adopt to make this transition more efficient? How can they choose between all the options that will be available in the market? What should they think about before? And also, what's the role of technology in all of this? What is how does technology fit in? And what is the value?
And how do they, what's the role it plays in this shift to to the online world?
Lori Boyer 04:01
Okay. Awesome. I am so excited to hear all of the answers to those. So this is going to be really fun. I want to start though, Filipa, I would say I have a friend who runs just this amazing boutique in this, and that's why I mentioned that earlier, in kind of a smaller town, really popular.
She's doing really, really well, but she doesn't sell anything online. Okay, she hasn't moved into the ecommerce world. If she said to me, Lori, why should I? You know, I'm doing well as is. What, what are the reasons that you feel like are the most important reasons that people should move to the ecommerce world?
And should they always, I guess, Filipa? I mean, maybe they should, don't need to.
Filipa Almeida 04:44
Let me start with, with the, your specific example. Okay. You said something really important. Your friend says she's really already doing pretty well. So she's quite happy with where her business is at. Right. So even if it's not for the unmissable opportunity that online brings to any retailer wanting to expand their, their sales, expand their, their revenue.
I think it will for in her case, it will be a lot about keeping up with their customers demand. So her customers nowadays, they don't always want to go into the store and shop at take may take the time to go into the shop and, and choose their products. The general customer basis is is evolving. Their needs and requirements are evolving. And they expect retailers to evolve with them. They expect their favorite stores to provide the experience of purchasing online and not making them go into the store. They expect to have their the the that same product offering available at any moment constantly, immediately. And and they expect to have that option of going into the store if they feel like going to the store or just having that same product at the distance of a click of a button.
Lori Boyer 06:05
I love how you said that. It was something that I hadn't really thought of, but sometimes, it's terrible, but sometimes it's not about you and what you want. You may just love being in the store, but as a business owner, if you're running a business, no matter the size, your customers really do come first. And what their needs and demands are are probably different than what yours may be.
So so smart. That is so true. Consumer behaviors have completely shifted. I, I know for myself, I am so guilty. You said that and I felt guilty a little bit because I am very much the type who likes to buy things online and not that I don't mind going into the stores, but yeah, getting it conveniently is, is key.
Filipa Almeida 06:51
Yes, that convenience is now I think the norm. I think customers expect that at all times. They expect their favorite retailers to keep up with that, with that convenience and that service. I think there's also an other very striking reasons that will make a retailer feel like they need to tackle this online opportunity. I think the first one is it's an it's an unmissable opportunity in the sense that the global ecommerce market has tripled its size in the last 10 years, and it's only growing it's very incredible rates still. Also, I think retailers realize that they can now showcase their same range of products that they previously was only accessible to us to the hundreds, dozens, maybe thousands of customers that walk into their stores, and now they can showcase them to millions of customers that may stumble into their website or into, or, or may find their stock available in marketplaces or other online retailers around the globe.
They can reach customers that they would never reach before if they, if they didn't.
Lori Boyer 08:04
Yeah, absolutely. ecommerce, global trade. It's huge and it's only growing. Those consumer behaviors. We've moved into this online world where people are very comfortable shopping online and that is where the opportunity is. So let's say my friend then decides, okay, what am I going to tell her? What are the first steps she needs to take? What, how do you even get started? She has a website. Obviously, most brick and mortar places are going to already have a website and whatnot. So, you know, what's next?
Filipa Almeida 08:37
I think next is trying to design what that distribution what distribution strategy should be.
So, what will it look like? What will the operation look like with two channels now? And what do you want for that? So, do you want to have, like you were saying, most retailers already have an online store. Okay, do you want to stop there? Or do you want to then make your make, you were saying your friend has a boutique.
Okay. Do you want to keep your online store or do you want to reduce inventory risk by by implementing a dropshipping model where you have the stock of your sellers, the stock of your favorite brands directly available in your platform without you having to buy from them?
Lori Boyer 09:24
For those in the, in our community who don't maybe know what dropshipping is, can you just give us a little explanation? What is the dropshipping model?
Filipa Almeida 09:31
Dropshipping is a very popular model that multi vendor retailers are adopting to showcase their products online. What does this mean? Basically, the retailer, or let's call it the marketplace, reduces inventory risk by integrating the stock of their vendors, of their sellers, directly in their front end, in their product offering from their warehouses, from their systems. But into their system, into their into their front end. So that with drop shipping automation technology, you are able to sell in your online boutique a multitude of, of different products.
And the, this stock doesn't live with you. You don't hold the risk of that stock and it's sitting with your, with your sellers. In the end, you capture a commission. And that's how this works.
Lori Boyer 10:33
Let's talk about, you mentioned marketplace. Okay. So what is a marketplace? For, you know, those who don't know, you have my friend here, Stacey, shout out Stacey.
She may not even know exactly, you know, what is a marketplace and how do you kind of sign up to be part of a marketplace?
Filipa Almeida 10:55
Generally speaking, a marketplace is an ecommerce platform that displays a range of products under one single stop shop for any customer looking to buy from a given category or, or, or from if you're multi category, then any customer wanting to shop online, really. You have examples like Amazon where Amazon is a multi category one stop shop platform where you can find pretty much anything you'd like to buy. But not all that stock belongs to Amazon. A lot of that of the stock displayed in Amazon is coming from small boutiques in the countryside of any country, any big country, really, because they operate globally.
Who are sitting in their store and they have the opportunity to sell to customers that would otherwise never come into their stores or their websites for that, for that matter. You also have marketplaces, niche marketplaces, curated marketplaces. So these are online platforms that specialize and focus in a niche market opportunity. You have examples you have examples like customers operating in sustainable industries where they, their offer is certified sustainable. You have companies operating in other niche areas like gifting, for example. You want your, your product offering is, is specifically focused on gifting items. And you're, you don't hold the stock, but you work with a lot of vendors, a lot of sellers whose stock you display on your, on your platform and your customers are available, are, are able to buy it.
Lori Boyer 12:51
Okay, so that's fantastic. It's, so it's a way for you to get out there. How can you find, you know, the best platform, the best marketplace maybe for you? You mentioned there's a bunch of variety of types, different niche markets. How do you recommend finding what what is right, and and do you recommend being on multiple marketplaces?
How does that work?
Filipa Almeida 13:12
There's very interesting options nowadays for that. You have your own research, of course, that everyone can do online. That requires time. So it's it's the, and, and a lot of knowledge on the on, on the marketplace scene, which isn't always easy to, to find centralized. But then you have other really interesting options like players in the market that already specialize in finding that network of, of supply and bringing it to, bringing it to marketplaces that they are, that they are, that exists already bringing it to retailers that already exists. So, for example, the likes of Channel Engine, Channel Advisory.
These are all companies that they gather, they work with these smaller boutiques, brands that wants to go online, but they don't know where to start. So they work with these sellers and they bring those marketplaces to them. And that's a very interesting option that a lot of a lot of companies moving to the online world are are embracing.
Lori Boyer 14:17
So when, when you start to branch into this, I guess it sort of brought up a thought for me. Do you hire, how do, I guess, how do you split your team? How do you do this? The ecommerce, so you've got a marketplace, now you've got your physical location. Do you assign certain team members to work on one side and not on another side?
I know that there's different models and different ways, but do you have any recommendations for our listeners?
Filipa Almeida 14:44
That's a, that's a a really really interesting question and not easy to answer. I'd say that, I would say that it depends a lot on the magnitude of their, of their online distribution, whether they want to start small with their own website and they want to keep things separate, or whether they want to, you know, whether they want to focus on rapid growth, like capturing a lot of, capturing a lot of revenue with high investment, or whether they want to focus on sustainable growth.
So investing little, but strategically, and ultimately on how you want your, your distribution strategy to, how integrated you want it to be. So do you want to have an independent operation where you, you need to have a team that is only focusing on, on, on online, or do you want to integrate your, on your existing supply chain?
So your network of stores, your your warehouses, and you want to integrate it with your online operation and make it what we call, what is called an omnichannel distribution, where they were the offline and the online operations kind of intertwined. That is a much, that's a much bigger investment, a much bigger, operation that requires a lot, that requires technology that, that requires a tech heavy tech solutions customized based the, API based with composable technology.
And it's of course, something that requires a much bigger delivery sources. And then you can also choose to, to outsource part of your, part of your processes. You can focus on what you call your core which is your assortment and your front end and your customer service, but then outsource things like shipping, like exactly like players like EasyPost are, are currently doing.
And I think that's again, it goes back to the point of how you want your distribution and what your distribution strategy looks like.
Lori Boyer 17:02
Yeah, I love that. So, number one, just determine what your goals are, figure out what your strategy is going to be, and then adjust based on what those goals are. So, don't just dive in, but actually make sure that you're setting goals.
Filipa Almeida 17:18
Exactly, that's really important. It's really important for you to start with setting your goals, how far do you want to go? And then what's the best platforms out there that fit my needs and my strategy? That's the second point that is really important for, for retailer to look into.
Lori Boyer 17:34
So, Filipa, what do you feel like, as people start, are their biggest challenges that they face as a newcomer to the ecommerce world?
Filipa Almeida 17:43
They're, what are the options out there? Like, what do they, what do they need to, to consider when designing their strategy? I think that's a, that's a really big one. Another one that they, that they, they, they look at is how do I navigate this offer? Like, how do I know what is, what, what exactly is the best fit for me?
What am I looking at? Another one that's a lot of customers that I've that I've this, that I've had conversations with and that I've supported in the past have, have struggled with is, I've always controlled my experience in store, right? I know exactly what my customers can expect from the moment they come in, and I know the look on their faces when they go out.
So I know if they're happy, if they're not. I know exactly. I know it. I control it. And when, when they move to the online to ecommerce and to their online channels, they, they don't see it. They, they feel like they don't see it. They can't control it. So understanding how they can have that visibility and how they can and how they can get that perception is also another something that really weighs on them.
And, and something that you're very familiar with, you've probably had these conversations in the past with other guests is, shipping. So shipping is, shipping is something new. Maybe not completely new, but new as a standard for them. And they don't have control over that over that part.
Very, very rarely a company moving to the online also has their own distribution, their own transportation company. So that shipping side of it is really important. So how far do we, what does shipping look like? How far do I want to go? Do I want to ship in domestically? Do I want to ship cross border?
What does that entail? If I'm shipping cross border, what are the customs requirements? What are taxing implications? It can be overwhelming or very overwhelming for a traditional retailer to, to take this step. Last but not least, I think, another, and this comes from my experience with luxury fashion is extending the customer ambition, the customer experience ambition to online.
I can give you an example. I, I worked on a project to, to integrate to integrate the operations of a very high end luxury brand in Italy. And one of the things that they were really struggling with was how am I going to, how am I going to know that my customers are going to feel the same exclusivity and personalization experience in when purchasing from me in a marketplace? Something that they've built on their own online, but they don't know how they're going to pass through to their customers when operating through a third party and a marketplace partner. So I remember that was something that was critical for them.
A very simple example was the packaging. They had to make sure that their customers received their own packaging within the packaging of the marketplace. So they had to see the box. The box is value. The box is product for them. And, and that's all nuances to challenges that these, that a retailer faces when they're moving to the online, it's navigating the unknown and a lot of the ambiguity that's, that's operating online may have for, for, for these retailers.
Lori Boyer 21:28
Do you have any tips for the retailers then when it comes to you mentioned, you know, they may not know what options are out there and they're navigating the unknown. They're losing control over things they felt like they had control. You know, how do they get resources? How do they figure out what to do?
Filipa Almeida 21:50
I think the choosing the right platform is, is an important a very important decision, and it's something that may resolve part of those, of those other challenges like the control side. So if that is something that they want to ensure that they have data insights, customer data insights that they, that they have them in detail that they have them at hand with a user friendly dashboard and experience, that's something they can look for when they're looking at the different ecommerce platforms out there. So they should start they should start isolating the critical requirements for their operation.
So that could be one of them. Like I really need a platform that gives me great data insights. Customer data insights. That's what I'm looking for in this in this it's a priority for me when moving to the on to online channels. Another one can be, I need a platform that is going to be really user friendly because I don't have a tech team.
I don't have developers or any tech or tech savvy people in my in my teams right now. So I need something that is really user friendly. Something that they could also think about is, okay, I, I want to, I want to make sure that I have little barriers to integrating different marketplaces. They're a small retailer and they want to be present in a lot of marketplaces.
So I want to make sure I want to have very little barriers to this. So I want to choose a platform that has a broad a broad range of connectivity options with with other technologies. Something that that we see I think in the, in the ecommerce platform scene is some players, I'll give the example of Shopify.
Shopify has been really I think they've been doing a great job at great job at understanding their customer base, understanding their customer requirements, anticipating some of those requirements and those needs. And then shifting towards adapting and evolving in that direction. Like Shopify has become a very common very top of mind choice for many retailers joining they've created different subscription different subscriptions, subscription tiers for the different needs of their very wide customer base. And of the market that they serve, really they have isolated critical key key features that are typically required by those, those ICP of those different subscription plans. And they are, and they have and the platform, they've built it in a way that it's it's intuitive, it's user friendly.
It has great it, it lives in its own ecosystem. They have an app store where they make available third party apps that provide services that compliment the, the operation and the, the, and the, the range of services that they offer themselves. They also go beyond the platform. So I think when a retailer is looking at the, at, at which platform to choose, that's what they need to look at is what, what am I looking for? What is critical for my, for my business and for my operations? And then isolate that, try to narrow down the, the, those critical requirements, those priorities, and look at the, at the options available in the market.
And I'm, it will be intuitive. Sometimes there are platforms that are, they specialize in a niche. Like they're very popular amongst fashion retailers in Italy, for example, or platforms that they have a broad range of the features and it's easy for you to make changes to your business model using those platforms.
Lori Boyer 25:52
Yeah, I love that. And I think that it's such a great insight as you're moving into the ecommerce space there are a lot of resources. And as you mentioned, people have been there before. From the technology, but the people behind the technology as well as you reach out and talk to them, they're gonna give you advice, give you suggestions of things that you can do.
And and so they'll help you move forward, I think, is what I'm I'm saying. So, Filipa, so let's talk about maybe a business that has gone online. Maybe they you know, started out as a brick and mortar or they got themselves on a marketplace. What is kind of the next step? You know, so you're saying we're doing pretty well.
How do you expand that? What, what are the ways to continue scaling and growing?
Filipa Almeida 26:42
Top of mind for, for most retailers that tap into the ecommerce scene and that really want to continue growing is I think mapping out their, their possible routes, mapping out their, their options. What have they done already? And how can they grow that? So let's take the example of their own online store. They already have their own online store. Great. Okay. So knowing what to do to grow that online store. Is it's going to be growing that online store by making those products available, by growing their assortment or is it going to be by investing a lot in, in, in, in, marketing for example, or that's one, one route, but they can also think, okay, I have all this I have this, all this online operation already going and already well set up.
I have all this stock that I'm selling in, in online channels. Where do I want to grow? Do I want to go to to through an integrator to other marketplaces? Do I want to go do I want to become a marketplace? Like, do I want to start doing dropshipping at, is my technology ready for that? Looking for other technologies that complement their platform and that may open up both doors to them to become a marketplace and to connect to other marketplaces.
So really exploring the, the available range of, of platforms it's that are out there and that open those doors to them. But having.
Lori Boyer 28:20
Yeah, I was gonna say, I like the idea of kind of deciding, am I wanting to expand my inventory or am I wanting to expand my reach? You know, am I trying to get my current inventory out there more?
Do I want to join, multiple marketplaces. Am I wanting to spend more specifically on marketing? So kind of making your decision on your next step. And then it seems to me at this stage, technology and automation is going to become even more critical as we get into that omnichannel kind of experience. What, I guess, recommendations do you have around technology and automation?
I think especially when it comes to kind of creating a similar customer experience online as in your actual brick and mortar store.
Filipa Almeida 29:06
Absolutely. The point around tech groundbreaking technology innovations like artificial intelligence machine learning incorporating that into your into your into your channels both online and offline.
I think that is absolutely important when you're looking to grow your your operation. I think you can. You can already see that it's playing in not only the not only you're optimizing your supply chain. So through inventory management, automations making sure you have, for example, real time stock updates throughout your entire supply chain, or you have the ability to and automate drop shipping to your to your vendors so that they have they can become more and more efficient in supplying your orders.
And you can provide a better service to your to your customers. But also automating processes through robotic robotic task automation for any in your in this really helps your customer service teams to provide better and better service because they can focus, they can shift their focus from routine daily tasks to strategical and, and more complex tasks. So using all of using, knowing the technology, knowing where to implement that technology and, and then following through with monetization and and measuring results. That's, I think that's, right now, that's key to sustainable growth across any online platform.
Lori Boyer 31:01
Filipa, as we get into this kind of larger, you've grown a little bit with your online presence, how does automation and technology become even more important? And I guess, what kind of specific areas do you feel like retailers should focus on automating at this point?
Filipa Almeida 31:22
The first thing that, that comes to mind is the increasing importance of profitability before the market the investor, the investor, our, sorry, before investors were looking for growth, rapid growth. So companies were focusing on showing that growth investing a lot of resources, people technology as well into showing that growth. And there's been a shift lately in the, in, in, in in the market to look for profitability more than rapid growth.
And that's, I think, where, technology and groundbreaking innovations like AI, machine learning really come into place. These solutions are key to helping you optimize your operations achieve cost efficiency by making what were before routine tasks, tasks that that required manual work but they were quite simple, straightforward rule based.
Making, to putting to using technology to, to perform those tasks instead of having a resource, a person there. So you have you, you have opportunities to do this, this across your, your entire supply chain and your entire fulfillment operations, like with inventory management Inventory syncing order order processing return processing.
There's a lot of manual tasks that before companies had to do, and now they can they can implement robotic process automation that will do that for them. And they can free up those resources to focus in other things. They're both improving the customer experience because they're becoming more competitive in their in their processing times, for example, or in the regarding stock in their, they're really minimizing their, their no stocks and out of stock sales.
But also you see that in customer service, you have leaner and leaner customer service teams that are focusing in delivering value. They're delivering value because they're using their skill set to perform complex and strategic tasks rather than manual and, and routine and rule based tasks.
Lori Boyer 34:00
I loved, I kind of had an aha light bulb moment there where, because we're talking growth and I'm always talking scaling, growing, growing, growing, and you said something so cool. You said. Look for opportunities for profitability growth, not just overall growth. And I think that's huge, Filipa. So often we are, we're taking technology around everything.
Okay, time to grow. That means more inventory, more storefronts, more. No, we could just be finding ways to become more efficient. As you mentioned, improving using automation to get rid of all those inefficiencies and optimization and customer support and stock outs and all of that, where growth can actually just be a growth of your bottom line.
Which is actually a reduction of all of that waste. So I just thought that was so cool.
Filipa Almeida 34:53
Yeah, it's, it's, it's becoming, I feel like the conversations around where, like you were saying, where to grow, what, where to go, where to grow, what to do, how to become more and more competitive. I think technology plays a huge role there.
And and coming from a, so slightly biased opinion, coming from a platform that that focuses exactly on that, on, on creating a solutions composable solutions. So something that you can build as you go and that you can select, pick and choose what makes sense to your, to your operation and not. And having that, having those having technology provide and opening those doors to you and connecting you and your business and, and, and your partner's stock and just creating that network and that symbiosis between all of the stakeholders.
It's really, it's, it's been really exciting to, to, to witness and to contribute to.
Lori Boyer 35:57
Filipa, let's talk, we're out of time. And so I want to hear, though, a little bit about Onport. You mentioned, you know, having a little bias because you love being a part of this company and what they do. So for our audience, for our listeners who don't know who Onport is what is Onport?
What kind of services do you provide?
Filipa Almeida 36:16
Yes. Thank you for asking that. So Onport, we are in the ecommerce marketplace and drop shipping platform. We're powering companies to leverage their marketplace and drop shipping models with next generation, composable technology. Composable I, as I was saying before, it's, you can build on, you can build on, on top of it.
You can pick and choose what you want to leverage on and what you want to hold off on, and then you can make that decision later on. You can make that decision from the get go. So it's, providing that that service to, to our customers through more than 35 prebuilt integrations with third party with third party apps, third party providers and through more than 3000 API endpoints that we support.
So you can either choose to use our beautiful products and the capabilities and features that it already offers, or you can choose to use our range of APIs and build on top of it.
Lori Boyer 37:25
So Filipa you know, my friend Stacy, for instance, can she access it? She's in the Dallas, Texas area. You know, is it global? Obviously you're in Portugal. How does that work?
Filipa Almeida 37:36
Yes, we, I'm in Portugal. We're a fully remote company. So our, our team is scattered across the globe. We do have several customers in the U.S. We support customers in the U.S. So yes, she can absolutely contact us, have a chat with us and see if this would be a platform that would serve her needs in case she wanted to bring her business online. Either, either through, well, the most direct option, I would say the most obvious one would be by converting into her online channel into a marketplace since she has a multi brand boutique. Or to understand how she can connect with other marketplaces. We can also help with that. So, yes, that's that would be a yes.
Lori Boyer 38:21
Okay, so how do people connect with you personally? So, you know, are you on LinkedIn or something if they wanted to follow you or just have questions for you about moving from brick and mortar to ecommerce?
How would they connect with you personally? And also how would they learn about Onport? Where can they connect with Onport?
Filipa Almeida 38:40
So I would suggest that I'm absolutely available to to answer any of those questions. And so please feel free to find me on LinkedIn and shoot me a message and I'll be happy to to support.
They can find a lot more information on our website. That's www.onport.com. There's also available channels on our websites to contact us. So, in case you're looking for a demo or just a chat to understand if that's, if it would be a good fit with your, with your business. Please do contact us, reach out.
We're available to help and to, and to help you figure all of this out.
Lori Boyer 39:20
Awesome. This has been just a really great conversation. I think that there are so many of those, especially kind of smaller businesses who are scared of this move to ecommerce. And so that's just a wealth of information. Really appreciate you today.
Thank you so much for being here. And we'll be excited to talk to you soon.
Filipa Almeida 39:41
Thank you, Lori. The pleasure was mine. It was great talking to you and I'm looking forward to speaking soon.
Lori Boyer 39:47
Perfect. See you, everyone. Bye bye.