The Polish company started as a mobile trade in electronic parts, but because it chose e-commerce, expanded to the West, and robotized the warehouse at the right moment, it is now worth $0,5B.

TME (Transfer Multisort Elektronik) is a family company of the Kuczyński clan, but with incredible potential because last year it had $0.34B in revenue and $57M EBITDA. The basis of its activity is e-commerce for B2B, and among its customers are big companies such as Boeing or Tesla and minor service points repairing smartphones. Its offer includes as many as 650K products in the vast majority of stock in one of the two logistics centers. Annual sales are about 2.2B products – from diodes to robot components.

Before the Internet age, there were many local distributors in each country. E-commerce has consolidated the market incredibly, resulting in TME competing mainly with Anglo-Saxon distributors, such as DigiKey, Farnell, Future Electronic, RS Components, and Mooser Electronics. However, all of them were established in 1930-50, while TME was only in the 1980s. The breakthrough came in 1994 when the company published a catalog for the first time, and arranged a shipping center in several rented rooms, where the company’s employees picked orders. The company made the next big move in 2001, with expansion to the east, although it ended in total failure. The situation changed three years after Poland acceded to the EU in 2004. TME successfully moved south, opening offices in Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania, then west to Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, and the UK.

It would not have been possible without remote Internet sales, which started in 1999. A strong focus on e-commerce in the hermetic B2B market was not evident because most competitors from the West did not attach importance to it. However, TME has created a tool for customer service in dozens of language versions, offering a huge amount of products. Many competitors had to give it up due to the lack of technology and specialists who could handle it. As a result, from Poland’s accession to the EU to the outbreak of the financial crisis in 2008, TME’s revenues increased five times, exceeding $25M, and in 2013 – $57M.

It is also the effect of speedy delivery, because on the following day from the order in Europe and within 48 hours, outside of it. No wonder TME has customers in 155 countries around the world. What’s more, unlike a typical export company, the company does not have to look for customers in new destinations because they reach the company’s offer using the e-commerce platform. And own branches on local markets allow for invoicing and after-sales service, not to mention the supplier’s credibility, because the provincial seat is essential even when buying online. Hence, the decision was to open a branch in Shenzhen, China, and Atlanta, USA. The latter is located at the world’s largest reloading hub Hartsfield-Jackson. It may help in expansion not only to the USA but also to entire South America, although it will not be easy, as most of TME’s global competitors come from the USA.