Corporate Vision Issue 5

CORPORATE VISION / Issue 5 2018 15 , Moving forward, in five years, the team wants to be the leading social selling community in Europe, and Stefan explains what opportunities the team is looking to explore. “Looking ahead, our vision is to empower 100,000 women in becoming successfully independent. In five years we want to be the leading social selling community in Europe. “For the time being, our business opportunity is already available in Germany, Austria, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Slovakia. We are pursuing further expansion plans. Also, we ship products to France, Italy, Belgium, Finland and Estonia.” PIPPA&JEAN is a social selling community based in Frankfurt/Main, offering designer fashion jewellery, accessories and perfumes. We invited boardmember, StefanHelmers to tell us more about the unique methods that the teamutilises. Live Your Dream! PIPPA&JEAN was founded in 2011 by Gerald Heydenreich, Annette Albrecht Wetzel and Martin Eyl. Stefan tells us what differentiates the company’s business model from others, and which aspects pique the interests of clients. “Vital to our success is our way of selling. Our PIPPA&JEAN products are not available in stationary trade, but in a modernised business model for direct distribution; as we are a social selling community. We combine the advantages of home selling, eCommerce and social media, and provide our business partners (Style Coaches) with everything they need to start their career including their own personalised online shop. PIPPA&JEAN handles the entire ordering process from shipment and payment through to returns.” Regarding the company’s overall mission, the team at PIPPA&JEAN work hard to encourage women and men to become successfully independent entrepreneurs and fulfil their dreams. Stefan tells us what this mission means to the team. “In encouraging women and men to be independent, we proudly uphold our company values based on ‘Initiative’, ‘Quality’ and a ‘Do Good’ attitude. From the very first day, our entire PIPPA&JEAN team has been determined to support our Style Coaches in reaching their goals. Some of our partners head up large, international teams and regularly earn a five-figure monthly income. Others are content having a side job with us.” When discussing new projects, Stefan reveals to us the steps the firm takes to ensure that their clients receives the best possible outcome. “At PIPPA&JEAN, we believe that with every new project, it means there is a new collection. Our jewellery is designed with loving attention to detail and carefully made by hand. As such, we use all kinds of different materials: genuine gemstones, freshwater pearls, Swarovski Elements, high-quality stainless steel and leather. Since a high level of comfort when wearing our jewellery is important to us, we pay special attention to workmanship, and carefully select the manufacturers with whom we work very closely with, ensuring that our quality is always at its best. Also, we regularly travel around the world to find the best manufacturers for our jewellery which is currently manufactured in Italy, Germany and Southeast Asia. Operating within the direct selling industry, it is vital that Stefan and the team employ certain techniques which enable it to stay ahead of emerging developments within the market, and he tells us what methods they employ. “Direct selling is a strong industry which generated a global revenue of more than € 110 1804CV42 billion in 2016. Our advantage over established companies is that we don’t have to think about how to digitise our business model. It has been digital from the start. Also, we still find new ways to add a new twist to direct-to-consumer selling. For example, we successfully launched Facebook Style Partys to take home selling online.” Bringing the interview to a close, Stefan informs us of the developments he foresees and how the firm will adapt around these. “At PIPPA&JEAN, we strongly believe that more and more brands will expand their sales using direct selling and build up their own direct-to-consumer channels with independent sales teams. The mix of home selling, eCommerce and social media leads to an extraordinary and individual shopping experience. This is why we have built our own social selling platform from the beginning and have started offering O3S to other brands in a SaaS model (www.pippajean. com/platform).” Contact: Stefan Helmers Address: Carl-Benz-Straße 21, Frankfurt am Main, 60386, Germany Phone: +49 69-945 493 700 Website: www.pippajean.com