Business View - November 2015 63
traction, so we decided we would try to make a company
out of it. I went to friends and family and raised about
$750,000. We got a warehouse, opened our facility
there and got going. It took about nine months to a year
to get the facility ready and get the website going. During
that time, I sold my pharmacy and I put all of my focus
on Pharmapaks. The first year, we had some growth, but
we were not profitable; it took about two years until we
started to figure out how to make money in this e-com-
merce industry that we were new to. We worked with two
developers and started building our own technology and
our own platform.”
While growing the company’s own website, Pharma-
packs.com, Vagenas and his team began to experiment
with the notion of going out to the marketplace to see
if they could partner with other e-tail enterprises and,
as he explains, “establish ground in each one.” He ex-
plains that while a lot of companies try to compete with
the large established e-tail sites, such as Amazon, eBay,
and Wal-Mart, in this regard, Pharmapacks was going to
be decidedly different. “We don’t want to compete with
them; we want to work with them,” he says. “That’s been
our model. We’re not going after Amazon’s customers.
We can share in the customer base.”
In fact, the company’s first partnership was with Amazon,
and within only a few years Pharmapacks became one of
the largest health and beauty retailers on the site. “And
then,” says Vagenas, “we did the same with eBay. And
we started to understand and perfect our platforms and
technology for the marketplace business.”
AT A GLANCE
WHO:
Pharmapacks
WHAT:
An online retailer of health and beauty
products
WHERE:
College Point, New York
WEBSITE
:
LOGISTICS
