A true Australian success story, Ruslan Kogan started Kogan.com 17 years ago, and since that time has grown massive to offer more than 30 million products across a very wide range of products and services, with Ruslan joining Alex to talk about it all – and more – see the video interview at the end of the article – just scroll down!
Kogan.com started back in 2006 offering two flat screen TVs, in an era where those TVs still came with analogue TV tuners, rather than digital tuners as standard.
Fast forward to 2023, and Kogan now offers a thriving marketplace with tens of millions of products and a range of services that help people genuinely save money, whether buying the big brands, or buying from a huge range of Kogan-branded products.
Although Kogan’s 3QFY23 financial results came out the week before this article was published, showing a drop in sales by about 28%, this is against a global backdrop of high inflation and recession, following two years of COVID lockdown spending that saw huge amounts of electronics and other home products being sold in Australia and worldwide, with demand pulled forward due to the unusual realities of being stuck at home.
Today, in the face of high inflation which causes people to become smarter spenders with frugality back in style, Kogan has done the hard work of significantly correcting inventory levels, rationalising inventory categories, renegotiating supplier contracts, recalibrating marketing spend and optimising operational efficiency and capital management, with further operational efficiencies being implemented throughout the remainder of FY23, and all of this sets Kogan up for a solid future.
After all, no matter how many product purchases were pulled forward, technology marches ahead with ever better features and capabilities every year, across the Australian and New Zealand markets that Kogan.com operates in, there are more than 31 million customers who still need products and services, no matter what the market conditions, and who need an online retailer, that as Ruslan himself states, has “kept the bastards honest” in the rest of the retail market.
So learn more about what it is like to run one of Australia’s biggest retailers, Ruslan Kogan kindly joined me on an episode of Alex on Tech, embedded below, to talk about this all, and more.
You’ll to learn what gave Ruslan the idea to start Kogan, you’ll learn about his favourite Kogan products, you’ll learn about the power of refurbished technologies to save money, you’ll hear how the Kogan team chooses which new products and services to offer to customers among other great subjects, so please watch the video interview below!
