This investment carries considerable risks and may lead to a loss of the entire assets invested. Projected returns cannot be guaranteed and may be lower than expected.
360Living is the first online factory outlet that connects furniture manufacturers with end customers. 360Living disrupts the traditional furniture sales channel and eliminates costs in the process. End-customers save money and time, while furniture manufacturers are able to achieve high margins. Since our launch, we've already been able to acquire 1,100 customers and achieve revenue of over €130,000.
Traditionally, furniture travels from the manufacturer via a wholesaler to the retailer. This three-stage sales strategy increases the price and length of delivery time for end customers. Instead of investing in their own furniture, customers have to incur much of the distribution costs for it. More specifically, there's often a 300% markup on the furniture manufacturer's selling price.
Most of the time, customers have to wait weeks until they receive the furniture they've already purchased; this is especially true for large furniture items.
This is where 360Living comes into play: By eliminating the intermediary, the furniture is significantly cheaper and is more quickly delivered to the customer. At the same time, 360Living also increases the spreads of the furniture manufacturers, which until now, have been exposed to the traditional three-level distribution sales model in a way that often endangers their very existence.
Our approach: For the first time, 360Living customers are able to purchase directly from manufacturers online. 360Living offers a transparent F2C marketplace (F2C = factory-to-consumer). In addition to the customers, the furniture producers also profit from this development. While they're specialized in manufacturing furniture, they're not set up for online sales. Until now, manufacturers have depended on distributing their products through large furniture store chains. With its F2C marketplace, 360Living provides a direct sales channel to customers. All products are offered by manufacturers at affordable factory prices and are available for shipment within 72 hours. This allows 360Living to weaken the dominance of large retailers and individual shops while simultaneously creating a world in which end-customers are able to more quickly, efficiently and transparently decorate their homes. This is because 360Living enables customers to make their purchases directly from manufacturers and importers. Through us, furniture manufacturers can become successful online vendors.
The 360Living team has many years of experience from within the furniture industry. For example, the founder, Axel Johannis, was employed at one of Europe's largest furniture purchasing associations before he successfully investigated various business models in Silicon Valley. What's more, the sales director has 45 years of experience in the furniture industry. Now 360Living is ready to grow on the German market and expand into neighboring EU countries. We plan on reaching the break-even by 2018.
Why equity-based crowdfunding?
360Living has opted for an equity-based crowdfunding campaign with Companisto in order to meet the capital requirements of follow-up round of funding of 1.2 million euros. The follow-up financing is intended to expand marketing and B2B sales in Germany, which will enable expansion into EU neighboring countries and pave the way for profitability in the last quarter of 2018. Through Companisto's excellent reach, we hope to gain valuable feedback from the Crowd in order to get an even better feeling for the market and the potential target group.
360Living operates a curated factory-to-customer marketplace for all products having to do with the home & living sector. At 360Living, customers are able to purchase goods directly from the factories and storage facilities of manufacturers and importers in Germany and Europe. This is done according to our factory outlet model, which guarantees affordable factory prices and quick delivery. 360Living offers individual advantages to the two core target groups of the marketplace, the furniture manufacturers (B2B) and the end-customers (mainly B2C).
360Living earns its revenue primarily through commission (transaction fees for sales carried out via the platform).360Living's commission is higher than what's typically seen on the market, as the unique "factory-to-consumer" calculation cuts traditionally high sales and distribution costs and instead makes it possible for all involved parties to profit: The factories, the customers, and 360Living.
In addition to earnings from commission, 360Living charges the manufacturers a fixed monthly subscription fees (monthly usage fees) in order to use the platform.
Today, 360Living generates 10% of its revenue through services for manufacturers. This is done, e.g., by providing them access to our custom-developed logistics system. In the future our service portfolio will continue to grow. We're going to ad marketing services and white label software (explanation: a product that isn't offered under the name of the original manufacturer).
360Living follows and an "asset-light" approach. This means that there are very few high capital / high risk assets. This is comparable with the service provider, Uber, which does not even own a car fleet.
As a market place, this means that 360Living is a "commodity-free" company, as its role as an intermediary means that it does not carry any costs or risk having to deal with returns, complaints, or warranties.
The same applies to the costs and risks for storage and logistics: 360Living doesn't operate any expensive storage facilities. The vendors operating on the platform use their own storage facilities. Logistics operations are completely outsourced to logistic providers, like DHL, GLS, Cofern, and Emons.
Thus, 360Living completely eliminates both of the main risks of the furniture market: The risks of goods and logistics. This is where most of the competitors in the online furniture trade fail.
The limited 360Living costs are passed on as a financial advantage to the B2B customers and end-customers. At the same time, this is also where the revenue is generated from. A classic win-win situation.
360Living's business model takes the best from conventional online sales channels, marketplaces, shopping clubs, and online shops and combines these in a new and unique way. And anything that doesn't work in these traditional models is excluded.
Before starting 360Living, we thoroughly tested over twenty different business models in the home & living market for months – and we did this according to the "user first" philosophy (in short: the end-customer and customer behavior is what counts most). More than twenty web pages were put to the test, the user numbers were analyzed, 200 customer interviews were carried out, and dozens of expert interviews were conducted. What's more, we've analyzed the 100 most important German online shops for furniture. Data from the "factory-to-consumer" model shows that this model was, by far, the biggest winner for all the tests on average. The extensive amount of data we collected supported our decision to select this current business model.
Competitive situation at home & living
360Living is the only supplier to combine ALL the advantages of a shopping club, the online retail sector and marketplace.
360Living is a registered and protected EU wordmark, and the opposition deadline for this entry has expired. All URLs for our expansion into further relevant European markets have been secured.
In the four months from January to April 2017, 360Living acquired 30,000 registered marketplace members and about 1,100 buyers. Here, 40% of all the users became returning visitors while 10% of all purchasers were returning purchasers.
In terms of marketplace vendors, we were able to finalize 30 annual contracts with furniture manufacturers from the most relevant product groups.
What's more, a network of partners was set-up internally at 360Living in order to operate the marketplace. Our logistic partners are DHL, GLS, Cofern, EMons, and Seven Senders. Additionally, our marketing partners are, among others, Affilinet, VE Interactive and Trusted Shops.
360Living's current purchaser data shows that a very large portion of the revenue (ca. 80%) is generated with end-customers. A smaller portion (approximately 20%) is generated through business clients (e.g. small companies).
The core market of 360Living is built around the online direct sales of furniture manufacturers to end customers in Germany. In 2017, this market encompassed a total revenue volume of 440 million euro in Germany.
The entire German e-commerce market is forecasted to see 3.66 billion euro in revenue in 2017. Manufacturers (about 12% market share) share this with brick-and-mortar retailers (about 26% market share), online traders (approx. 40% market share) and catalog / mailer-order / teleshopping vendors (approximately 22% market share). 360Living is working on the niche of direct sales from manufacturers, because it's not occupied by direct competitors and is the fastest growing segment in the e-commerce sector (+105% over the last 10 years).
The entire furniture market in Germany saw revenue totaling to 33 billion euro in 2017 and has been stable for many years.
The capital requirement for the follow-up round of funding for 360Living is 1.2 million euros. The company has already secured € 700,000 through the "Berlin Innovativ" funding program of Investionsbank Berlin (funded by the European Union and the European Fund for Strategic Investments’ (EFSI) Horizon 2020 program). The remainder will be used to enable the Companists to invest in 360Living. We plan on using the Companists' funds as follows:
Investment phase 1: € 100,000
360Living plans to appoint a second sales manager specifically for the home accessories sector and to implement additional sales measures, such as taking part at important trade fairs.
Investment phase 2: € 300,000
In addition to the measures from phase one, 360 living is also investing in marketing and sales activities. Here, our focus is on channels, such as referral marketing (controlled word-of-mouth) and the expansion into B2B sales through additional trade fair visits.
Investment phase: 3: € 500,000.
In addition the measures from phases 1 and 2, 360Living is planning on expanding into neighboring EU countries, especially the Benelux countries. The main purpose of the investment is to build up country-specific teams (sales, customer service).
360Living's business angels are made up of four active industry experts who themselves manage medium-sized businesses from the furniture industry. Together, their combined revenue amounts to over 100 million euro per year. These are:
The business angels, together with the other founders, have already invested more than 1 million euros in 360Living and, in addition to their investments, contribute more than 100 years of experience in the retail and furniture industries. What's more, they also add industrial contacts and a large network from the furniture industry.
The participation rate of the business angels is approx. 53%
The ways for the Companists to support 360Living are as diverse as our range of products.
Get furnished: Become a customer of 360Living and experience how the curated market place works and what advantages it brings in terms of price, speedy delivery and transparency!
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Be talkative: Recommend us to your friends and business partners. As multipliers, they make a big contribution.
From left to right
Patricia Thewes (customer service lead), Daniel Liss (creative director), Beau (chief bulldog), Axel Johannis (chief executive officer), Maximilian Sonnenfeld-Blaufuks (chief marketing officer), Moritz Sendler (head of customer operations B2B), Emmanuel Acquah (chief technology officer), Linda Sabiers (content management), Aylin Sarica (content management).
The team is supported by: Klaus-Peter Rohlfing (sales manager), Anton Kozlov (frontend engineer), Arkadij Kuzhel (backend engineer), Priyatosh Ohja (backend engineer)
360Living GmbH
Neue Schönhauserstr. 3 – 5
10178 Berlin
Telephone: +49 (0)30-398204100
Mail: service@360living.de
Website: https://www.360living.de
Social: https://www.facebook.com/360Living.de
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