How Bluepack beat rivals in Sweden

Written by Max Riis Christensen

Bluepack is a Danish company used to adapting to the times. Starting out in 1953 selling grain sacks to agriculture customers, today the company’s wide product range of packaging serves customers across industries. Since 1999 the company has had a branch in Sweden and interestingly the company chose to launch its first webshop there. 

Bluepack’s Swedish webshop is performing so well that the company is now building its Danish version based on what worked there. In the latest Spotlight interview in our Succeed Abroad series, we talk to Managing Director Poul Strandmark about his learnings from the company’s growth story. 

“We had to figure out how much money to spend and what steps to take. We had to experiment,” - Poul Strandmark, Bluepack Managing Director.  

Building in reverse

Poul tells us although the company had a difficult start to its e-commerce business in Sweden, today the company has completely outperformed its biggest competitor in the Swedish market and is tracking good activity in its webshop there.

So good in fact, the team is in the process of transforming its Danish webshop to match the model in Sweden and then look to the next market. 

“It's a bit reversed but we knew that there was a big market for webshops, including business-to-business, in Sweden. So that was the background for it.”

“The idea is to try different markets,” he says. “We know the risks and challenges and know how to navigate around them. With a plug and play approach, we can start there and test it for relatively low costs.”

What worked in Sweden

Poul says Bluepack has been able to outcompete competitors in the market “simply” because they were active on their website and constantly optimising it. 

“We used Google Ads, which helped improve our website's ranking and visibility. Initially, we had to figure out how much money to spend and what steps to take. We had to experiment and determine where we should focus our efforts and which keywords to use,” he says.

“We focused on keywords and allocated a budget for advertisements. That's how we gained visibility. We can see that when it's managed and nurtured properly, setting goals, adjusting prices, and making other improvements result in increased customer acquisition. Last year we made a significant impact by promoting our products on the website.” 

Meanwhile, the team believes the accessibility it offers to customers online has played an important role in driving growth. 

“Being able to connect with a human instead of an automated system is crucial.”

Poul says the company’s niche within its field selling smaller quantities to craftsmen also helps - something that is enabled and scalable by e-commerce but wouldn’t work with a sales-led strategy.

“We're the only ones with a webshop specifically targeting what we call ‘smaller customers’. Our focus is on customers who typically order two pallets at most. There isn't much emphasis on this segment in our industry.”

“But we know that many customers are small craftsmen or need smaller quantities of 15 or 20 bags, etc. So, there's clearly a market for it. It's fantastic. The profit margin is extraordinary.”

What’s next

Up next? The company is looking at Germany, although a less digitally-minded target audience is a consideration for the company. 

“We've talked about Germany, specifically northern Germany,” says Poul. “We've done some research on the German market. They aren't as digitally advanced as Denmark, and they are divided into regions where individual regions are influenced by certain wholesalers.” 

He says the company will therefore not exclusively target northern Germany. The plan is to create a German website and handle it from Denmark, just like they do with Sweden.

And that is a good note to end on!

We look forward to following the journey and thank you Poul Strandmark for taking the time to share your key takeaways from Bluepack’s growth story with our learning community.

This is the latest story in our series where 50+ top e-commerce professionals share their learnings on market expansion tactics, localisation and technology across markets with our learning community. Check out the full collection here for more tips.