Every ending is a new beginning
After the great launch in Rwanda (more about this in the next blog post), I went back to Cape Town. From there I travelled to Johannesburg to go on an orientation trip. As I wrote in my latest blog post, our goal is to sell the Correctbook Originals in Africa as well.
But, where to begin? To find out, we needed to do some field research. So, I got to work, visiting a lot of stores in Johannesburg. The effort paid off, because we learned that the best thing we can do is focus on the somewhat higher segment stores when selling the Correctbook Originals here.
Concerning that, I can already reveal something: I was given the opportunity to give a presentation to one of the biggest retail chains in South-Africa by the name of P&A. They look forward to selling our products in their stores and the collaboration with them is almost finalized while I’m writing this. They’ve already committed the first order. With five stores and another one in a huge mall, this is a great start of our commercial sales in Africa.
However, we shouldn’t forget the other sales channels. That’s why I visited the partner that’s going to sell Correctbook Originals online through distributors in South Africa. This partner, called Trefoil, attended the trade show in the beginning of May and was keen on starting a collaboration with Correctbook as a result! Cool right?
After my visit to Johannesburg, I had another important task waiting for me in Cape Town.That was the presentation of our products to the potential manufacturer. I had a beautiful presentation prepared, completely in our new branding and luckily this paid off. The account managers of this factory where all very excited and we set up a good partnership with them. This means we will hopefully be able to start producing Correctbooks in South Africa by the end of this year!
Not long after that, it was time to get on the plane to the Netherlands. Back to Correctbook Europe B.V. and the team that I hadn’t seen for six months! With that the first part of my adventure in Africa ends, but it’s been a wonderful start for Correctbook Africa.
At the moment I’m back in the office with my Dutch colleagues, who welcomed me with typical Dutch snacks and a welcome back banner the first working day after my arrival. Although I’m back in Europe, I’m still quite busy with everything concerning Correctbook Africa, even though it’s from a long-distance.
