Assortment and offer – The most important work: An interview with Katrin Lundgren

Focus on Your assortment and offer – and don’t get stuck in the boring stuff, says Katrin Lundgren, CEO of Kodmyran and E-commerce veteran since 2001.

Katrin Lundgren is well-known in e-commerce circles, perhaps best as the CEO of Kodmyran. But her roots in online retail go way back—she started her first e-commerce venture in 2001.

“At the time, I was breeding cats and had a litter of kittens where the mother didn’t produce milk. I couldn’t find any milk replacement in town. The kittens died, and I thought no one else should have to go through that. So I decided to sell cat milk online. A wonderfully broad business idea—for 2001…“

Katrin launched her first store in 2001, Swecat.se, starting with just that idea. ‘I just went for it and expanded with more cat products,’ she says. Today, 15 years later, she runs Kodmyran, a platform provider for online stores. Based on that, we’ve had the opportunity to dive into Katrin’s experiences as a retailer and CEO.

One of the key takeaways from our conversation with Katrin is the importance of not spending too much time on tedious tasks. When asked what she values most in an e-commerce platform, she highlights a time-saving backend. If Kodmyran’s own platform didn’t exist and she had to choose another, saving time and avoiding what she calls “boring stuff” would still be her top priority. That includes repetitive tasks that a good platform should simplify.

Back in 2001, had there been more options available, she says she probably would’ve picked one that looked good and simply learned the hard way—which may actually be necessary sometimes. Some merchants spend years debating which platform to use and never get started. Others, like Katrin, dive right in.

She sees a tendency among online retailers to get stuck on unimportant details. Sometimes, it’s better to just launch and see what happens. When asked what one area she’d focus on if she could only work on one thing in her store, she answers without hesitation: assortment and offer. It’s both the most fun and the most crucial. You can drive all the traffic in the world to your site, but if your offer isn’t right, you won’t sell. And if your assortment doesn’t match your audience, there’s nothing to buy. It’s the foundation of all sales.

My reflection on the conversation with Katrin

If I had to sum it up: the right product for the right audience. As a merchant, you need to keep that mindset at the core of everything you do. And it’s not something that’s easy to outsource.

A few facts about Kodmyran

• Katrin Lundgren runs Kodmyran AB, based in Sundsvall, Sweden
• Their main product is Shop4Sale, an e-commerce platform
• In 2014, they had a turnover of SEK 4.3 million and employed 5.5 people
• Nearly every year, Katrin and Kodmyran organize E-handelsdagarna (E-commerce Days) in Sundsvall