Our 20 Year Old Rug Business Grew 25% in 2023
This is a follow up story for Mundoalfombra.com. If you're interested in reading how they got started, published almost 5 years ago, check it out here.
Hello again! Remind us who you are and what business you started.
I’m Manuel Mas and I have run Mundoalfombra.com with my family since the year 2001, where we sell mostly rugs and carpets, most of them created in our town in Spain: Crevillent (near Alicante). My brother Antonio is our CEO.
We sell mostly in Spain, but in these years international orders have grown, despite our web being only in Spanish.
We sell all types of rugs and carpets for home and professional use. Think in all forms and sizes, as well as materials: natural fibers, leather, wool, acrylics, etc., and you ́ll have the perfect rug for your needs available in our store.
Also, we are specialists in doormats and custom-sized rugs. The lack of specialized online stores for custom-sized rugs made our web reference in Spain for these needs, they are our most sold products.
We have been online since 2001, which makes us one of the oldest online shops in Spain. Persistence and good work have been the keys to being alive 23 years later.
Tell us about what you’ve been up to. Has the business been growing?
The opening of new marketplaces has impacted the availability of product offerings in our country, leading to increased competition. However, this has allowed us to stand out by offering a different range of products and strengthening our proposition of personalized carpets.
We maintain a strong organic SEO visibility and continue to leverage Google Ads, Facebook, and Instagram Ads, as well as Pinterest, to attract customers through various channels. We have enhanced our email database and optimized our email marketing automation processes.
All that work brings 25% more revenue if we compare 2023 with 2019.
SEO is now bringing 60% of our traffic, and we are doubling 2024 our organic visibility. My job has evolved from part-time work since its origins to full time since 2022.
Launch, don´t hesitate. 80% perfect and launched is better than 99% perfect and not launched.
What have been your biggest challenges in the last year?
The biggest challenge during this time has been the establishment of a digital marketing and strategy agency to provide our expertise to local small businesses. We have leveraged our knowledge in e-commerce and digital marketing to offer related services, thereby increasing revenue and diversifying our pure e-commerce offerings with this type of work.
One of the challenges we faced was the need to make a good freelancer team to help us in this new business.
We have also had to deal with working with fewer staff members at various times throughout the year and experiencing peaks in workload that required us to support our colleagues in warehouse or logistics tasks.
What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?
Over the years, we have learned to enhance the profitability of each product and improve the multimedia content on our websites. We followed a process with every product analyzing the cost of materials, manual work cost, and shipping costs by size… directly to the cent. This has helped us price most of our products better and improve benefits per selling.
We have utilized Artificial Intelligence for image and content creation, and invested in our photographic equipment to enhance the presentation of our products, distinguishing ourselves from major players and marketplaces.
On the financial front, we have brought order to our finances and realized that it would have been much better to have addressed it earlier. Now we are using a specialized financial software that works better than the one we had before which was limited in some aspects.
Now all the financial data is synced, the different shops are connected and we are saving a lot of hours a week in billing processes.
What’s in the plans for the upcoming year, and the next 5 years?
One of our plans is to grow internationally. We need to explore and test how our business will respond to a European presence. Fortunately, shipping costs for our products are lower than other small products and times should be fine. We are working with some marketplaces to arrive in new countries (Portugal, France).
The eCommerce future is exciting, and we want to enjoy it. Our 5-year plan is not defined but seeks a well-done internationalization and being a 7-figure business as soon as possible.
What’s the best thing you read in the last year?
Books, they´re on Amazon
- Corleone Business School
- The Sovereign Individual
- Prepara tu organización para el futuro
- Great CEOs are Lazy
- Vive más.
- When Coffee and Kale compete
- On good authority
- La Realidad no existe
- Building a Second Brain
I’ve created Gurulibros.com with a lot of recommendations, check it.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who might be struggling to grow their business?
Launch, don´t hesitate. 80% perfect and launched is better than 99% perfect and not launched.
Communicate differently from your competitors.
Automate whatever you can, and take some minutes to analyze your work.
¡Launch a podcast! We launched the “Pata Negra, Alfombra Roja” podcast with a friend who also has an e-commerce store, and it gives visibility to our shop.
Where can we go to learn more?
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
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Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
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