Employee Highlight: Marissa
On working with Brazil
Marissa came to Granify with an extensive background in working with big e-commerce companies, but the most interesting market she has explored since joining us has been Brazil! I had the chance to sit down with Marissa and ask about how this all started and what about it excited her most.
When Granify first decided to tap into the Brazilian e-commerce market, the motivations were pretty simple: a large population and the recent massive internet adoption rates. This equates to huge growth potential. In fact, Brazil’s online retail growth is predicted at 12% for 2017!
The other motivation, and the most exciting as we discovered, was their younger e-commerce market.
At first glance this may seem like a scary move to target foreign, newer to the market clients, but as Marissa puts it, these companies are actually “more innovative as they feel the need to catch up to where other established e-commerce brands in the market are.” They are more willing to experiment to give them a competitive edge against market giants like Amazon, which is a great fit for us.
Marissa says that Brazil entered the e-commerce market at just the right time. Because they were later to the game, these Brazilian companies couldn’t simply sit back and see how the market played out, they had to stand out and “address their consumers needs in a creative way.” Granify’s solution really resonated with them to be able to accomplish just that.
Another benefit of working with these smaller brands is just that: their size. Like us here at Granify, wearing many hats is inevitable so it is more likely that each person Marissa deals with has a fundamental understanding of the technology. The separation between departments is less drastic than at a larger corporation, making the flow of information from salesperson to designer to developer that much smoother.
Working with clients on another continent of course brings on it’s own set of challenges…
- Different expressions and the way things are translated. This has lead to a lot of learning on both sides and a greater need for clarity when interacting.
- Currency has been a bit a hurdle, since all of our data is in USD and they need everything in Brazilian Real. So in addition to all of the inherent fluctuations of business, we need to understand and manage the ebb and flow of currency exchange too.
- Different payment processes — As Marissa put it “once you have learned it, it’s not as challenging, but when we started there were things I didn’t even think about being potential issues.” For example, on Brazil sites you can reserve your cart, but not pay. People often don’t go back and pay so the order is just cancelled. Because the order is cancelled, the customer never receives the products, making this very different than a return. We had to figure out a way to process these orders on our end. The Brazilian clients have a great system for tracking these orders on their end so it was just a matter of converting the data from them.
Luckily our Brazilian partners have been really great and have made overcoming these challenges easy! And some things that we thought might be challenging, like time zones, turned out not to be issues after all. Brazil is only two hours ahead of Austin, but they usually work longer hours so they are still in the office when Marissa needs to get in touch with them.
Earlier this year, Marissa and our VP of Growth, Jay, had the opportunity to travel down to Brazil and meet with our clients there. It was a whirlwind trip of only a few days, and jam packed with meetings. The city of São Paulo is very busy and business oriented. Most of the people you see moving around the central part of the city are headed to an office or a meeting, always on the go!
São Paulo is also a very interesting, beautiful city with lots of good food. One thing Marissa didn’t realize before going is that Brazil is home to the largest Japanese population outside of Japan. This has had an impact on the culture and food in many regions, and has also made it easy to find great sushi. A feature that Jay and Marissa definitely took advantage of.
Brazil is also home to very friendly people. Neither of them speak Portuguese (although Marissa did attempt to learn some phrases), but they always found that people were very nice and willing to assist them find their way around.
Meeting in person with the Brazilian clients had an important, positive impact on their relationships. Even working for a digital technology company, there’s something about meeting someone face to face that helps build a connection that you just can’t get over email or the phone. In person meetings help build the rapport and trust that are so important to every business relationship.
Although a follow-up trip is not currently planned, Marissa is excited to go again at some point and spend more time with her clients and in the Brazilian culture. Understanding the environment and culture of her clients has helped Marissa to be even better at her job, and allows us at Granify to create something even better for our Brazilian counterparts.
No matter where in the world you’re located, Marissa and the team are able to help you optimize your e-commerce potential. To learn more, see how it works or reach out to us directly for a custom-tailored consultation.
