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21 March 2019

Laureano Turienzo: World Retail Expert. New global retail and ham, a perfect combination

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Laureano Turienzo: World Retail Expert.

The scenario has changed. These days consumers, in their overwhelming majority, are digital consumers, and use connectivity for many of their daily activities: from social relationships, to entertainment or shopping.

The digital economy is reframing our lives, taking us to an unexplored world from where we will not return. Everything written during past generations is being rewritten urgently.

Never in the history of humanity has everything changed so quickly. And in this scenario we are seeing that new players in Retail, such as Amazon or Alibaba, are connecting much better with consumers than the older players. We also see how quality products, far from having a difficult horizon, will be the big winners of the next decade. And here ham has much potential. Why is ham an adequate product to sell in digital marketplaces?

Last year, 2018, a total of 1,434,000,000 people made at least one purchase in the world’s four megastores: Alibaba (in its different formats), Jd.com, Amazon, and eBay. A total of 4.1 billion people are connected to the internet, and many of them, when they want to research a product, do so through those 4 megastores. All products and services that can be sold will be sold in these 4 megastores. And therein, ham is a product that already has prestige, and fits perfectly in these marketplaces.

Selling Gourmet products on Amazon, brand or price?

Amazon has almost 600 million products on sale at the moment, betting on the price does not make sense. Without a doubt, the key is differentiation. It is very important to extol its natural attributes, health, culture, Spain.I want to sell my hams on Amazon, where do I start? What is an aggregator? Alone or via a distribution marketplace?

Unlike some of the Alibaba platforms, Amazon is not a total Marketplace, given that part of its business involves its own products. In the event of selling on Amazon, the ideal solution would be to target companies dedicated to preparing strategies within Amazon. The first decision that needs to be taken is whether to work with Amazon as a pure Marketplace, or whether to also entrust it with the logistics operation. It is also essential to define a positioning strategy within Amazon, taking into account, as already stated, that Amazon sells more than 600 million products, and a bad strategy can mean that it is very complicated for consumers to reach us inside Amazon.

On the other hand, we should be clear where we want to sell, in that there are many countries where Amazon is not the market leader, where its presence is symbolic, such as China, or Latin America. There are other very interesting marketplaces, such as tmall, or Mercado Libre, or jd.com.What is the profile of the consumers of Gourmet products on Amazon?

The average consumer is an upper middle class consumer who is a prime subscriber (the Amazon membership plan that involves the payment of a monthly or annual fee and which grants members a series of advantages, such as the free delivery of many products).Is Amazon a friend or an enemy for the ham marketing channel?

The reality is that consumers are choosing Amazon, Alibaba, Jd.com or eBay. Billions of consumers visit these virtual stores, thus a company must ask itself whether or not it is convenient to have a presence in the world’s four largest showcases.What will you talk about at the 10th World Ham Congress?

Naturally I'm not going to talk only about Amazon. In terms of sales and visits, Alibaba and its different platforms have much more visits than Amazon, and it sells almost triple that of Amazon. Although it must be said that 90% of what it sells is sold in China, while 90% of what Amazon sells is sold in 4 countries, namely, the United States, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom, so in my conference I will not only talk about these retailers, but also about those others that are the leaders within their markets.

I will analyse the sale of food on-line both in Spain and around the world (with a special focus on China and an emphasis on gourmet food).

I will analyse what the new consumer will be like in the upcoming decade.

I will explain the ecosystems of Amazon and Alibaba and Jd.com and the opportunities that they represent for the ham industry.

I will also talk about the physical supermarkets of the future, because I believe that ham can be a total star product, in that we are moving towards supermarkets where ham is a product that is perfectly aligned with the model of the future.