Thiago Monteiro began his entrepreneurial journey back in 2011 when he opened a cosmetics distributor on the São Paulo coast. At first, everything was simpler: he worked with some exclusive brands and supplied beauty and personal care products. But it was during the pandemic that his life took a different turn. Like many, he had to reinvent himself and ended up diving headfirst into the digital world.
With commerce halting and customers hesitating to pay, Thiago decided to bet on e-commerce. He turned a cluttered storage room into a mini operations center, put his inventory to work, and within three months was selling enough to cover all household expenses. That’s when he realized the online world had more potential than he could imagine.
Despite being an ‘old-school’ businessman more tied to offline operations, Thiago began sharing his digital experiences. This led him to seek a tool to streamline the management of his e-commerce business, which by then was selling everything from household utensils to children’s toys and shoes.
Initially, the entire process was manual. He and his wife, Nathália, dedicated themselves to registering products one by one on various marketplaces like Mercado Livre and Shopee. They faced numerous challenges: inventory control was complex, systems didn’t integrate, and even shipping labels for postal deliveries had to be created individually.
It was in 2022 that Thiago made a leap in his entrepreneurial journey by investing in technology. While searching for systems to address these challenges, he found Magis5, an automation and integration platform for major marketplaces like Mercado Livre and Shopee.
“I could list all my products at once across all marketplaces integrated with the platform. I gained agility and visibility, resulting in a sales boom. Not to mention all order-related processes are now automated and centralized—from order status tracking to delivery, including sales control, invoicing, and issuing tax documents.” ‘And that’s how we went from an improvised storage room to a high-performance e-commerce business,’ he highlights.
Thiago Monteiro found in Magis the solution for his business
According to the merchant, the platform automates various manual tasks like ad and kit creation, inventory control, shipping, and financial management, while also providing detailed dashboards that bring greater efficiency and profitability to the business.
“I remember how complicated inventory control was since systems didn’t communicate with each other. Today, thanks to technology, everything is automated. I can now manage my inventory easily and bulk-price different products much faster—all intuitively, so even e-commerce beginners can use it without difficulty,” he says.
As a result, the time spent managing marketplaces was cut in half, allowing him to achieve more with less effort. ‘We even reduced shipping errors, which were common without automated control. This also helped lower logistics costs,’ he explains. While three people were once needed for shipping and product sorting, he now manages everything with just one employee.
Between 2022 and 2024, the transformation was even more significant. The result? Revenue of R$ 400,000 per month with a much leaner and more efficient operation.
However, Thiago doesn’t plan to stop here. He already has plans to launch his own brand, Tadebrinks, focused on children’s products like tights, hair bows, and overalls.
“Is it possible to run my business without technology that integrates and automates management? Technically yes, but it would require heavier investments and far more effort to manage processes that are now 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 with Brazilian e-commerce being highly segmented, one thing is clear: being present on marketplaces can be decisive for business. A BigDataCorp study on the ‘Profile of Brazilian E-Commerce’ showed that nearly half of online stores in the country (45.79%) are run by just one person. Additionally, 40.47% have at most ten employees, typically between one and two.
In 2024, Brazil already has over 1.9 million online stores, a 17.14% growth from the previous year. Of these, 68.44% sell between one and ten products. These numbers show how the sector is growing while highlighting the need to invest in technologies that automate processes and empower small businesses to stand out in a highly competitive market.
