I N T E R V I E W

Just do your best, don’t be greedy, think longterm, be correct, and make your customers happy...
S p o tl i gh t o n : Debra Nete x c l u s iv e

Erika andZoltán Bődy„Zoltán, what can you tell us about thelatest developments at your company? Have
you added any new brands lately? Also, is ittrue that you are busy setting up newheadquarters?
Zoltán Bödy: We haven’t spoken for longtime, but I see that rumors are still thriving inour industry. Your information is almost right.
We won’t change our headquarters, but weare setting up a new warehouse andshowroom, next to the existing two buildings.
It will be 2000 square meters, on two floors
and 7900 shelf pieces. The plan was to beready by the end of this year, but we madesome modifications to the plans, so now we
see that we won’t be ready before next year.
We really need the extra space because theneeds of our customers are growing and wereally don’t have enough space for our stock.
The second warehouse, which we built twoyears ago, was already too small when it wasready. We hope the new one will be big
enough for a longer period of time.
We are always testing new brands in ourmarkets, but most of our novelties arecoming from our regular suppliers. At themoment, we are working with 219 brands,
but this year, we have already stopped
distributing 72 brands. Of course, we are
already in negotiation with new suppliers,
and we plan to stop carrying a few more. We
are always working to find the best offers forour customers.

EAN turns to the eastern partof Europe to find out whether
the adult market in thesecountries is subject to thesame changes and developments as the rest of Europe.
Providing us with in-depth
information about his hometurf is Zoltán Bödy, owner andmanager of the Hungarian
wholesale company Debra
Net. He tells us about thedevelopments in his owncompany, about the challenges of keeping up with theever-changing market, andabout his expectations
regarding the upcoming year.

How did you manage to be this successful insuch a highly competitive marketplace?
Zoltán: I think there are many small reasonsand it is also important that we are here andthat we have known the market for long time.
The three pillars of your company are
product assortment, customers-focused

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business policy, and competitive pricing?
Would you mind providing us with somemore information about these three elements? How are they reflected in yourcorporate philosophy?
Zoltán: Just do your best, don’t be greedy,
think long term, be correct, and make yourcustomers happy… Of course, it’s not aseasy like that. We are under great pressure
from both sides, suppliers and customers
alike. Because we are almost the only
competitive distributor in our area, we haveto keep everything on stock for our customers at a competitive price, but all thebrands want to get in and sometimes it ishard to say no. It is also important to staycompetitive in spite of big price wars in
Europe because our expenses are still muchsmaller compared to some other companies,
and we own all our properties, so we don’t
pay rent. Also, we don’t pay for energy
because the whole company is running on
solar panels. Thanks to these savings, wecan make the necessary adjustments.
Aren’t you worried about the erosion of thetraditional supply chain in the adult market as
the lines between producer, distributor, andretailer are blurring more and more?
Zoltán: Of course, everybody has theirthoughts about it, but we always focus on
moving forward, we never ‚push the brake‘and we always develop to keep up with thebest ones. We also keep our eyes open andtry to maintain our place in this ever-changing world.
Debra Net was born in Eastern/CentralEurope. Are the structures in that region
different from those in Western Europe? Arethe above-mentioned problems maybe notas pronounced in these markets?

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Z O L T Á N

Zoltán: Yes, maybe we are a few years behind inthat regard, but it is good for us because thechanges we see in Western Europe are also
coming to us, so we have time to prepare
ourselves.
In Western Europe, the brick and mortar trade isunder a lot of pressure due to the success ofe-commerce. Is the situation similar in Eastern
Europe? Has it affected your business and yourcustomers?
Zoltán: It is almost the same situation. It’s like withyour previous question. The changes are coming,and we have more and more online customers,
and more and more regular stores are improving
their websites.
The market is in a state of constant flux. How doyou manage to stay abreast of new developments?
Is flexibility becoming the most important thing in
the adult market?
Zoltán: Yes, it is not easy to develop in thisbusiness, for more reasons than one. We have tomake investments, and we can do it because like I
told you before, we try to keep our cost low and weplan for the long term. On the other hand, we haveto be creative, we have to work cleverly, follow newtrends, etc. We are lucky because we have a lot of
young people on our team and I learn a lot fromthem as well. I think flexibility alone is not enough. I
tend to say: Just do your best and be open. Liveand work like this, and nothing wrong can happen.
Private brands have more or less become anecessity for wholesalers – does Debra Net also205B Ö D Y

have private brands, and how important are theyfor your bottom line?
Zoltán: This will be our next big project, after thenew warehouse is ready. We have already started
with our preparations because I think it is very
important these days. We already have some smalllines, but we are planning to go about it much
more seriously in the future.
You are not going to present
your products at eroFame thisyear. What are the reasons for„W E I M P R O V E D AY BY
this decision?
Zoltán: Most of our customers
D AY, A N D W E H AV E M O R E
are from Central Europe. It is
S U C C E S S F U L P R OJ E C T S
also difficult for them to fly toHanover, so only few of them
TH AT A R E D E V E LO P I N G
tend to do it. Moreover, thisyear, Venus Berlin is taking
TH E R I G H T WAY. “place at the same time, soZ O LTÁ N B Ö DY
those few people will be
divided into two groups.
Preparing for eroFame costs alot of energy. This year, we aregoing to put this energy into our projects andbusiness instead because that will be more
beneficial to us.
Do you see potential for Debra Net to expand andgrow as a wholesaler in the traditional sense, or isthe situation in today’s market such that growth
can only be achieved through a wider range ofservices, such as dropshipping?
Zoltán: We grab every opportunity for growing and
we already started to do dropshipping two years

The Debra Net
premises from abird’s eye view

I N T E R V I E WThis is what the newwarehouse will look
like once it is finishedago. We are the only one^s who can deliver almost
anything in 24 hours within three countries:
Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. This is a bigadvantage these days when speed matters a lot.
So, are you happy with the year so far?
Zoltán: I can say that, yes, I am very happy because
we improve day by day, and we have more
successful projects that are developing the right way.

- We also launched a new website that meets theexpectations of today‘s trends. Of course, there isalso a lot of work to do here.
- We can’t forget about the new warehouseproject, which I mentioned before.
- I am happy that, in addition to these hugedevelopments, we are also successful in our daily
work and we continue to grow, even before
finishing those big projects.
- I am happy because Debra Net’s success isrecognised, not just by FORBES magazine but also
by international credit rating companies: We got
the best possible AAA rating from BISNODE, whichis extremely rare amongst Hungarian companies(only 0.63 % have the same qualification).
- And the last, but not least, I am happy that Erika
is not only my lovely wife, but also a great partner.
We complement each other and we have learned
to work very well together.
I think, next year we will be even happier, when we
can see the benefits of the current developments.

Work on the newwarehouse will becompleted next year

-We started the year with a complete new ERP
system, made for Debra Net with the experience of26 years. That was a huge deal, and we still haveto work on it. Till today, more than 15.000 working
hours have gone into this project.

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