FLLAGG20: Revenue Tripled in Three Years

Interview with Giuseppe, CEO of FLLAGG20

How did your business start?

The company was founded in Naples in 2019, with the goal of selling online. We had already explored this world in 2016, but stopped almost immediately. In 2019 we started from scratch: a sole tradership with a flat-rate tax regime, a lean structure to get everything moving again.

We applied to Amazon to sell during the Christmas season. Amazon did not authorize us. Fifteen or twenty days before the pandemic lockdown, in February 2020, authorization came. We started, and then the pandemic hit.

A launch during the pandemic: luck or vision?

Fortunately costs were very low. Having more free time I studied the market quite thoroughly, trying to understand where there was room. We are Duracell distributors. I identified the battery niche, liked it, ran the numbers and realized it was doable.

During that same period I fell in love with the Pan-European program: the ability to sell across all of Europe, going from 60 to nearly 600 million potential customers seemed like an excellent opportunity. In 2020 we started the process of opening tax positions: France, Spain, Germany, then Belgium and Poland.

The idea was simple: do a few things well and become leaders in our niche.

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The Turning Point for FLLAGG20

In 2021 things got complicated.

In 2021 we exceeded the flat-rate limits and started cross-border sales on all European markets. That's when the tax problems began, in the sense that everything had to be managed in a completely different way.

My accountant is a childhood friend. In the first year he was able to keep up. In 2021 it was becoming unsustainable: volumes had increased and he could no longer figure out where the transactions were coming from.

One evening, close to midnight, he called me. There was a Spanish transaction that was confusing him: we later understood that a joystick had shipped from Spain but went to Washington, in the United States. Since it was leaving the European Union, the transaction was VAT-free. Doing things manually had become impossible: cases like these couldn't be handled correctly.

"We were desperately looking for someone who could help us."

He found ZonWizard online, forwarded me the link and said: "Look, it seems good to me, it looks like what we need."

I replied: "If they do what they say, we've solved 70% of our European problems." Fortunately, that's exactly how it turned out.

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FLLAGG20 and ZonWizard

How did you get started?

We started with Tax: it was the absolute priority. Then I discovered the Inventory View, and that changed everything in day-to-day management.

Through Seller Central we often made mistakes with restocking to the warehouse. With ZonWizard I have the ability to get sales forecasts based on the last 30 days, for each ASIN. And the morning routine (FBA shipments) went from over 5 hours to under 2 hours per day.

Then we discovered the Profit Tool. The details I used to hunt down one by one in Seller Central reports, sometimes spending half an hour on a single ASIN: now I see them in one click, broken down marketplace by marketplace.

The real game-changer here was setting up the daily alerts from the Profit Tool that notify me if a product is losing money on a specific market. I no longer have to go looking: it tells me directly. And with the new tables I see each ASIN market by market: in Spain I make 12%, in Germany 5%. I make the decision in seconds.

"Before I couldn't have all this information and control. I had a summary. Today I have everything, in real time, broken down by market."

Today my day is split: 2 hours on the inventory tool, 2 hours on the profit tool. The analyses I do today alone, without ZonWizard, I would have had to delegate to a new dedicated employee, taking on a new hire.

Amazon chose you as a pilot for inventory management.

Yes. A few weeks ago Amazon contacted us to participate in a pilot program reserved for sellers with the best inventory management performance. I thought about it for a couple of days and then chose to decline.

"It's one of the areas where we're strongest. We've already optimized so much and I don't want to dedicate more time to it right now: I'd rather grow in other areas."

It was still satisfying to be chosen, but time is what it is... and it needs to be managed well.

How does your team use ZonWizard?

There are five of us, and 2-3 people in the company use ZonWizard every day, each with different responsibilities. I handle inventory and profit.

My wife manages the accounting side in the Tax section and also Refunds: selling on six European markets with FBA logistics, refunds accumulate and every year we recover around €30,000 per year through the tool. Having a dedicated tool that tracks them down and monitors the impact of the recovery on margins makes all the difference.

Today we use virtually everything ZonWizard offers because we prefer having one integrated tool, rather than many different pieces of software that don't talk to each other.

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Always Playing Away

What's the main difficulty on Amazon today?

Amazon changes the rules very frequently and you have to adapt your strategy. I always tell my team: we're playing a never-ending championship, but we play all our games away. Amazon sets the rules and we, whether we like it or not, have to adapt and stay updated.

Today you can't have more than 90 days of inventory, you can't have less than 30. None of this existed in 2019. Every change requires a new modus operandi.

A story I want to tell.

About a year ago, Guido interviewed us, similar to this one, to understand what we'd want to improve in ZonWizard. I suggested automating the shipment order to the warehouse: we ship to FBA every day, and back then it was all manual.

I told him, a bit hesitantly: "I don't think this can be done." He replied: "Yes, this could be done." I spent the summer thinking it was just an idea. When I came back from vacation I found everything implemented, exactly as I had proposed. I couldn't believe it.

"If you can free yourself from routine tasks, you can dedicate time and mental energy to other things. And that's where you can grow."

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×3

Revenue over the last three years.

With around 600-700 SKUs, a catalog that grew by only +20%, and a team of five people, of whom 2-3 use ZonWizard daily. Not by adding random products, but by knowing deeply the ones we sell.

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Without ZonWizard: over 5 hours

per day just for inventory management between Seller Central reports, Excel spreadsheets and manual FBA shipments

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With ZonWizard: under 2 hours

Inventory is under control, margins are visible market by market, and analyses that used to take half an hour now take one click.

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The Future of FLLAGG20

What's your strategy for growth?

We sell many items, but not randomly. I want to become a leader in my niche, not expand to 20,000 SKUs without really knowing them. Those with many different products face more risk on Amazon: each product has different rules, restrictions, and issues.

We've also thought about expanding to other marketplaces. But FBA logistics and self-fulfilled logistics are two completely different jobs, with different organizations and structures. You need to get well organized first. For now we're on Amazon, working well, and growing.

"We're always under stress as retailers. But we're growing, also thanks to the automation of all our processes."

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Thank You FLLAGG20

Thank you so much, Peppe, for this conversation!

You are a company that works, that has grown exponentially. Cases like yours are quite rare on Amazon today: the right SKUs, deep product knowledge, small but highly efficient team. We are very happy to be part of your journey.

We've grown so much thanks to you too. I don't say this just to say it: I say it because it's true. From the tax problem of that midnight phone call to today, ZonWizard has been present at every stage of our growth. I don't know if we would have continued without this support: starting Pan-European without an adequate tool would have been very, very difficult.

See you soon, Peppe, and good luck away! 😊