Thiago Monteiro began his journey as an entrepreneur back in 2011 when he opened a cosmetics distributor in the coastal region of São Paulo. In the beginning, everything was simpler: he worked with some exclusive brands and provided beauty and personal care products. However, it was during the pandemic that his life took a different turn. Like many others, he needed to reinvent himself and ended up fully immersed in the digital world.
With commerce slowing down and customers hesitating to make purchases, Thiago decided to venture into e-commerce. He transformed a messy little room into a mini operations center, got his inventory moving, and within three months, he was selling enough to cover all household expenses. That’s when he realized the online world had more potential than he could have imagined.
Despite being an entrepreneur ‘from the old school,’ more connected to the offline world, Thiago started sharing his experiences in the digital realm. This led him to search for a tool that would streamline the management of his e-commerce, which at the time was selling everything from household utensils to toys and children’s shoes.
Initially, the entire process was done manually. He and his wife, Nathália, dedicated themselves to individually listing their products on various marketplaces like Mercado Livre and Shopee. They faced various challenges: inventory control was complex, systems didn’t integrate, and even the labels for shipping products via mail had to be made one by one.
In 2022, Thiago took a leap in his entrepreneurial journey by investing in technology. While looking for systems to help him with these challenges, he came across Magis5, a platform for automation and integration with major marketplaces like Mercado Livre and Shopee.
“I was able to advertise my products all at once on all the marketplaces integrated into the platform. I gained a lot of agility and visibility, which generated a sales boom. Not to mention that all the procedures related to orders are processed in an automated and centralized way, from tracking order status to delivery, through sales control, billing, and shipping of invoices and documents. ‘And that’s how we went from an improvised little room to a high-performance e-commerce,’ he points out.
According to the merchant, the platform automates various manual tasks such as creating ads and kits, inventory control, shipping, financial management, also bringing detailed dashboards and providing greater efficiency and profitability for the business.
“I remember how complicated inventory control was, since the systems didn’t communicate with each other. Today, thanks to technology, everything is automated. Now I can manage my inventory easily and price different products in bulk much more quickly. All of this in an intuitive way that even those starting out in e-commerce can use without difficulty,” he says.
As a result, the time spent on managing marketplaces was cut in half, allowing for more results with less effort. ‘We even reduced errors in product shipping, which were common without automated control. This also contributed to the reduction of logistics costs,’ he explains. And if before three people were needed to take care of product shipping and separation, today he manages everything with just one employee.
Between 2022 and 2024, the transformation was even more significant. The result? A monthly revenue of R$ 400,000, with a much leaner and more efficient operation.
However, Thiago does not want to stop here. He already has plans to launch his own brand, Tadebrinks, focused on children’s products such as socks, bows, and jumpsuits.
“Is it possible to run my business without technology that integrates and automates management? It is possible, but it would require larger investments and much more effort to manage processes that are currently fully automated. With this solution, I save time, reduce costs, and minimize errors – benefits that would be much harder to achieve otherwise,” he explains.
Even though the Brazilian e-commerce has a well-segmented profile, one thing is clear: being present in marketplaces can be crucial for the business. A survey by BigDataCorp, on the ‘Profile of Brazilian E-Commerce’, showed that almost half of the online stores in the country (45.79%) are managed by just one person. In addition, 40.47% have a maximum of ten employees, usually between one and two.
By 2024, there are already more than 1.9 million online stores in Brazil, a growth of 17.14% compared to the previous year. Of these, 68.44% sell from one to ten products. These numbers show how the sector is growing, but also reinforce the need to invest in technologies that help automate processes and give more strength for small businesses to stand out in such a competitive market.
