Kimondo Boosts Online Sales with Email Marketing, Automation, and Prestashop Integration

On a digital transformation journey to streamline their marketing activities

Kimondo is a family business composed of Alberto, the sales and operations manager, as well as his mother and his sister. They opened shop back in 2000 with a press kiosk in Sant Vicenç dels Horts on the outskirts of Barcelona, Spain. Kimondo sells bags and accessories, serving mostly women of different age ranges. The company prides itself on its close relationship to customers and the attention to detail in their packaging.

Over the years, the company has evolved both in size and in their processes. “At the beginning we were taking orders from home, we did everything manually, such as printing the labels, packing the orders and sending them. Now we have a store and everything is synchronized and automatic,” explains Alberto.

Kimondo began their digital transformation process four years ago, and in the last two years, they’ve focused on developing their digital marketing channels.

The right tool to communicate effectively via email

To make for a more robust marketing strategy, the Kimondo team needed a reliable and user-friendly solution that could support them throughout the process of their digital transformation. “We are a family business and a small team, and although we know how to run our business, we do not have any training in digital marketing,” explains Alberto.

One of the main objectives of the team was to send email communications in an efficient way, with a double opt-in to remain GDPR-compliant. In addition, they wanted to maintain regular communication with customers, with weekly newsletters to share highlights in the catalog and in their seasonal campaigns. In addition, the company was looking to communicate more effectively with their audiences about their loyalty program.

From a technical perspective, Alberto’s goal was to have a tool that could be easily integrated with Prestashop, their online store provider, to automate some of their processes and streamline operations within a single platform.

Recovering abandoned carts with automation

After testing several solutions, Alberto decided to choose Sendinblue since the platform was within his budget and easier to use than competitors’. “Most of the platforms we tested were very expensive or too complicated to use. With Sendinblue, we get better value for money. We pay for the emails we send and not for growth in terms of audience. For the size of our business, this is much more convenient,” he explains.

Alberto says it was a pleasant surprise to discover how easy it is to create campaigns with Sendinblue. “It was very easy to understand how everything works. I was sending my first campaigns the very next day after getting my plan.“ he says.  “Having pre-defined templates was also a great advantage. In my case, it only required making some adjustments for both email campaigns and automation.”

In addition, Sendinblue integrates directly with Prestashop, so they didn’t have to worry about synchronizing their processes. “Everything is up to date. The necessary information goes directly from Prestashop to Sendinblue without a problem. I like having everything integrated in one platform, both the automation part with the online store, and my email communications,“ explains Alberto.

For the Sales Manager, the automation feature is one of the most important for Kimondo, and personally, his favorite. “Today we have 8 scenarios. We automate our welcome and follow-up emails when we have a new customer,” he explains. “It was very easy to create the stage to recover the abandoned carts. When a user leaves an abandoned cart, 3 follow-up emails are sent. This has clearly had an impact,” Alberto concludes.

10% of sales attributed to email marketing

The digital transformation has been very positive for Kimondo. Alberto has noticed an increase in sales, and he explains how by integrating both digital and physical channels, there’s been a general impact on the entire strategy. “Leveraging digital channels has led to an increase in sales. I like that we can also maintain direct contact with our customers, not only in our store, but also in the digital world,” he adds.

Alberto explains that today they can attribute approximately 10% of their sales to email marketing, a marked increased compared to 3% before they started using Sendinblue. “We have clients with whom we have developed a close relationship  because they made their first order responding to a newsletter,” says the Sales Manager.

Additionally, their performance metrics have improved since they started using Sendinblue. “Today we have an average CTR of 7% and an open rate of 25% in our email marketing campaigns. This is a very positive indicator, since with the platforms we tested before, we never exceeded an open rate of 12%,” explains Alberto. One factor that has proven to be influential in improving the open rate has been the Send at Best Time function. “I appreciate the fact that it was included in our plan from the beginning. With other platforms I know that I would have to pay an additional fee just to have this function,” he adds.

The sales manager also attributes a large part of these results to the fact that the platform is very user-friendly, and to the support he receives from the Sendinblue team. “I have learned a lot on how to improve my campaigns since I started using the platform, not just because the documentation provided is very comprehensive, but the support team has taught me how to clean up my contact lists, for instance. Communication is efficient and fast with the support team,” Alberto concludes.