The Avangate solution was launched in 2005 by a management team emerging from GECAD, developer of RAV antivirus technology and founded in 1992. Carmen Sebe, Avangate’s CEO, is one of the company’s founders and main drivers of the Avangate mission: to facilitate software vendors all over the world to sell faster, more effective and more efficient their digital products over online and offline channels”. More information can be found on the corporate website, at www.avangate.com, and on the company’s blog, at http://blog.avangate.com/.
Taking this interview: Laurentiu Ghenciu, VP of Sales and Marketing at Avangate With Avangate since 2006, Laurentiu is in charge with the business development strategy, as well as sales and marketing for Avangate and, as many business partners say, he really understands the software business and client needs. Laurentiu has experience in internet software sales and marketing, with a proven record of success in the software industry. |  |
The Paypers: What lines of business does Avangate operate in and what are the product brands your company has to offer?
Laurentiu Ghenciu: ESD – Electronic Software Distribution. More precisely, we offer under the Avangate brand a full-featured, secure eCommerce platform tailored for global software sales, web marketing services and an affiliate network. In addition, we have a second brand - the ARMS reseller management system, also tailored for software sales.
The Paypers: What makes the company`s e-commerce platform different from other similar ones on the market and what advantages does it provide for both software publishers and buyers?
Laurentiu Ghenciu: Wow, heavy artillery right from the start : - ) OK, since you asked, we have a comprehensive solution for software sales, meaning we help software vendors sell products via both the online and the offline channels, which is very important especially for larger, established vendors who are selling software through a distribution channel in addition to the Internet. Everybody is looking at costs today, at optimizing processes, centralized reporting, integration with back-end systems and the like, so it is crucially important to be able to help businesses overall not just on one disparate sales channel, although even that you have to do well, no question about it. Client feedback rates our platform as feature-rich, easy to use, plus we offer best in class customer and shopper support including a proprietary anti-fraud system.
Very important though and I left this on purpose for the end is that, besides technology, our customers value most the knowledge and expertise we share with them.
The Paypers: How many clients have selected the Avangate platform and what payment options does it support? What are the key regions and countries of interest to Avangate and why? Are you planning to support any additional payment methods in the future?
Laurentiu Ghenciu: We are currently serving more than 900 software vendors (with the Avangate and ARMS solutions), amongst which BitDefender, Kaspersky.ro, Lavasoft, Markzware, Iobit. As far as payment methods are concerned, we accept major debit and credit cards (VISA, MasterCard, American Express, PostePay, Discover, JCB, Diners Club, SOLO, Carte Bleue), Directebanking.com, check, PO, PayPal, Alipay, TrialPay, bank transfer.
Key regions – we are looking with great interest at emerging markets, more specifically the BRIC countries. Following our presence in established markets, this is the next natural step.
Regarding payment methods, the answer is Yes, we are constantly adding new payment methods, to cater for shoppers’ needs around the world. This is again part of our strategy to help vendors approach international markets with localized solutions, and the first stage is the shopping cart in a certain language, local payment methods, billing currencies, followed by localized marketing, product localization, etc.
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