Press

Strategies/E-business.

Pneus-Online: the new start-up company is now tackling the Swiss and European markets after its huge success in France. But the company is not alone in its niche.

"Our business model is simple: we buy large volumes to benefit from quantity discounts," says Alexis Nerguisian, the young founder/director of Pneus-Online (www.pneus-online.fr), a new self-financed start-up company based in Switzerland. In the tyre sector, price comparisons are not always easy, given the enormous range of products. But according to the specialist press (like the magazine L'automobile) and consumer Web sites like ciao.fr, the prices offered by Pneus-Online are highly competitive. Thanks to its low prices and light structure, Pneus-Online is running before the wind. "At present, we are selling tens of thousands of tyres every month. But our goal is sell a hundred thousand." These volumes are a lot higher than those of independent garages, even if they do not compare with mammoth companies like Euromaster.

GROWTH. Pneus-Online indicates that it has eight employees and plans to double its workforce in 2006. The turnover communicated in 2004 was ¤2.5 million, with a forecast of ¤4.2 million for 2005 and an objective of ¤15 million in 2006. (...) According to Pneus-Online, its site has 200,000 visitors each month. This is not just an on-line shop, but also a micro-encyclopaedia on tyres, providing useful information on the running-in period, wear and tear, adherence, pressure, regulations, load/speed indications and so on. All this information is written by Alexis Nerguisian, who is also a Porsche fan and a former amateur racing driver.

NETWORK. Pneus-Online takes orders via the Internet, but fitting is carried out by a network of partner garages. (...) "Our partner garages do very well out of it," says Nerguisian. "They invoice for the fitting and balancing, and we bring them customers for other services." Xavier Lancoud, from the Garage du Salève in Geneva, says that in one year, Pneus-Online brought him some fifty customers - to say nothing of additional services, the most often requested being wheel storage. (...)

Extract from PME Magazine - Philippe D. Monnier - No. 3 - March 2006