All of the above difficulties have become valuable in terms of generating interesting

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Andrey Grigorov, business director of the company "Novaya Pochta", spoke at the conferenceiForum-2023. In hisreportAndrey shared his experience of entering international markets, talked about the main challenges and mistakes, as well as the company's plans for the future.

Nova Poshta has experience entering international markets since 2014, when the first branch was opened in Moldova. Currently, the company provides logistics infrastructure for Ukraine, and the network of branches already operates in Lithuania, Moldova, Germany, Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic.

Exit experience
Photo: Nova Poshta

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“It was a natural feeling to follow our client”: why Nova Poshta decided to enter international markets
Andrey Grigorov claims that the trust that the company now has from the client makes it feel responsible. When a large number of Ukrainians left the country, it was not only fellow citizens who left, but also clients:

"There was a natural feeling to follow our client. The list of countries that we have now came from an understanding of where our client is now, where the Ukrainian has temporarily stopped," says Andrey.

The process of entering international markets was planned to go from country to country, focusing on Ukrainians to connect them with the Motherland. The sequence of countries reproduces the understanding of where Ukrainians are, to provide them with the service they have already begun to miss.

Having gone through a thorny path of 9 months, Nova Poshta has 5 operating countries and 40 branches. The opening of new countries began with Poland, where 7 branches were launched in a quarter. Andrey recalls that this played a cruel joke, because there was a feeling that everything was very easy. With the entry into new countries, an understanding arose of how much more needs to be learned.

Exit experience

About the differences between the European and Ukrainian markets
One of the incentives that pushed the company to enter the international market was the calls of customers who missed Ukrainian service. When business in Ukraine more or less stabilized, Nova Poshta began to pay attention to customer sentiment in social networks. Thus, Ukrainians got used to the fact that they can track their parcel in the application. Thanks to parcel terminals, you can receive your parcel at any convenient time.

Exit experience

As for Europe, the key method of communication there is e-mail. If it is not there, the parcel may not even be accepted for processing. In addition, if you fail to pick up the parcel from the courier twice, you will have to pay extra for the third attempt.

Andrey agrees that this is great for the company itself, but in terms of customer experience, it is terrible. It is precisely these difficulties that made Ukrainians feel that they have lost something. At the same time, Andrey Grigorov notes that the markets are oversaturated with competition: in Poland alone, there are more than 100 companies involved in logistics. And they believe that the existing level of service is sufficient.

"Comparing Ukraine and the countries where we have experience, everything happens quickly here. We sometimes get so used to speed that we forget how we lived without it. Perhaps it was the war that gave us the opportunity to open the gate and see what was happening there. We always lived with the opinion that it was much better there. At least in logistics, this is not the case," notes Andrey Grigorov.

Of course, Novaya Pochta tried to find partners. But after talking to them and seeing their operating principles, the company decided not to lose or reveal its competitive advantage. Andrey Grigorov says that after the war began, the service became even faster, and the Europeans can’t keep up with it.



Read also : Marketing in Ukraine during a full-scale war: Kirill Yezhov on consumer needs and expectations, as well as new challenges for brands
What difficulties did Nova Poshta encounter when entering international markets?
Regarding the difficulties, the first thing Andrey talks about is the legal and legislative regulation of the EU countries. It is necessary to take into account the consumer laws of Europe (GDPR(including) to understand what consequences this or that step will have. For example, in the case of Nova Poshta, the question was whether it was possible to write the customer's phone number on the box.

Another misconception was that at first glance the EU seemed monolithic. It turned out that the customs legislation, which is the same for everyone, can be interpreted in each country in its own way. Since Nova Poshta's activities on the international market are primarily related to C2C goods, this turned out to be atypical for local customs. The company faced the fact that the type of C2C goods requires the presence of customs posts in each country, which led to additional costs in terms of search.

Andrey mentions the difficulties associated with legal and banking issues. In Ukraine, everyone is used to the fact that opening a bank account and a legal entity takes several weeks. In the EU countries, everything is different: when the first branches began operating in Poland and the Czech Republic, it turned out that the legal entity was not open enough. On average, opening a bank account and a legal entity takes 3 months, but the further west you are, the longer it takes.

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"When we say that we have opened a new country or launched the first branch, this is the tip of the iceberg. It is just an event, but underneath it is the work of many people. The main thing is preparation."

Exit experience

Difficulties also lay in 1000 cell phone number list finding a suitable location for opening branches. In EU countries, most places are filled with historical heritage, and therefore it was quite difficult for the company to find a suitable location. It was also necessary to adapt to local peculiarities: for example, in Bucharest, to withstand earthquakes, the first floors must be equipped with load-bearing columns of 2 - 2.5 m.

insights:

It is necessary to get acquainted with partners and customs brokers in advance . Searching for contacts at local customs is a new standard for Nova Poshta. The company does not start cooperation without local contact and preliminary tests. Now Nova Poshta requires three tests to check the quality and speed of customs clearance.
We have to start everything from scratch . The practices and brand that had been formed in Ukraine for decades had to be adapted to new markets. The company realized that it needed to reconsider its approach to the client. If in Ukraine Nova Poshta is known as a high-quality and responsible brand that keeps its promises, then in the EU it had to start everything from scratch.
High-quality warm-up for the opening . One of the standards of "Nova Poshta" when opening a flagship branch is to involve an ambassador, inform in advance. This is done so that the client knows that the service he is accustomed to is already here.
A great opportunity to check the work of competitors . In the presentation, Andrey mentions the launch of a branch in Bucharest, when a competitor company was supposed to deliver brackets the day before the opening. The status of the parcel was constantly rolled back and the team had to contact the hotline. At this time, Nova Poshta realized that it had enough competitive advantages to be fast and reliable. In particular, the fact that Nova Poshta allows you to track the parcel in Ukraine and already in Europe is a cool manifestation of caring for the client.
Andrey argues that where you are a newbie, the main thing is not so much to plan a strategy, but to be open to change and quick reaction.