The book · Chapter 7 / 8
Herford, furniture and 4,000 families
My first German business: an online furniture shop I automated end to end. 4,000+ families and about half a million euros in the first year.
- Chapter
- 07
- Place
- Herford, Germany
- Time
- 2015
- Industries
- Furniture retail · E-commerce · Logistics
As life brings us in its own plan, I landed in Herford, Germany. In 2015 I started a completely new business there: MH-Store, an online shop for furniture.
Furniture is a hard product to sell online. Orders depend on suppliers, stock changes every day, delivery is bulky and expensive, and every invoice has to be correct. I did what I had learned to do: I programmed the business. Ordering, supplier synchronisation, delivery and invoicing ran automatically, so a small team could handle a large number of orders.
Within one year we served more than 4,000 German families and reached roughly half a million euros in turnover.
What I learned about furniture did not stay in MH-Store. Planning is a big part of selling furniture, and parts of this experience went into a furniture planning solution in our portfolio that today serves more than 980 stores in Germany.
After a successful start I made a strategic shift. Instead of selling products to end customers myself, I wanted to build the products that help other companies sell.
What this chapter taught me
Automation is what lets a small team serve thousands of customers without losing quality.