Grupo Casas Bahia S.A. (BHIA3) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and welcome to the Via Investor Day that's being broadcasted on YouTube and on the exclusive Investor Relations Investor page with simultaneous translation in English. Actually on the Investors page, analysts can download the content of the event through the QR code and also keep up with the presentations as well as submit questions through the chat that will be answered by the end of the event. And Via has a lot to share. And this is how we primed this event. We would like to present customer centricity, which is fundamental as well as the marketplace, financial solution platform and logistical power, and we're going to show you the main conditions and leverages to imagine important avenues for growth and imagine how to fulfill dreams for people and company, cutting-edge solutions and technology and new business opportunities and a powerful culture as well as the strength of the 46,000 employees, which is supported by a consistent ESG journey. And at the end, as I said, we'll have an exclusive Q&A session that will happen with the investors. And as part of this major concern for people, all of the health and safety sanitary protocols were considered and fulfilled to make this event happen, even if virtually. And to give you some opening remarks. I'd like to invite Roberto, the CEO at Via Varejo. Welcome.

Hello, and thank you, Helena. Welcome, everyone. I would like to thank you all that are connected with Via. And today, we're showing you a new Via Varejo, a new brand. Without Varejo in the name, just Via. It's modern, light and has new colors. This is the brand that expresses our transformation and our pathways for the future, innovation, individual at the center of our business. You are an important part of the construction of the company we're going to be showing here today. And I would like to call you to please get to know us and our innovation journey that created a new company that goes way, way beyond retail. You will see a company that is entirely digital that's ready to win in, of course, the marketplace game. And of course, ready to conquer our 97 million clients and the other millions that are ready to come. Via has transformed itself with a lot of technology to make customers really at the center of our actions. And in order to win with a powerful ecosystem that's open and ready to be approximated and receive these initiatives that bring customers closer to us. This is certainly the result of conquering the best talents. And the victories are as close as our changes. We represented strong GMV gains and significant market share gains as well. We are going to be even more recognized for believing in people and really fulfilling their dreams. If before, we were just a multichannel durable goods retailer, now we will be the relationship platform for consumption for Brazilians. And in order to reach this purpose and mission and to really become the biggest player in the sector, we have defined some strategic pillars, that's our content today. Customers are at the center of our business. We have recently promoted the combination between GMV and LTV as parts of these objectives and key results. Our strong point here is in that intelligence to generate value for each customer and really keep them engaged in our platform throughout time. So this is the year of the marketplace at Via. 2021 is certainly the year of marketplace at Via. Our omnichannel approach is a very strong point, and it will be at the service of the marketplace. Our sellers are going to find unique infrastructure that no other competitors can offer. And this will be one of the main pillars that will take us to the winning point at this game. We already know customers very well. And even so, we continue to invest aggressively in technology and data intelligence with our interactions with customers and the entire Via ecosystem. And we will continue to offer solutions for new business, as we've done with Distrito, where we added on companies like I9XP, the Celer Network and other solutions. We have our doors open to innovation, and we will be partnering and investing and acquiring as well as accelerating other players that can help transform our business. In this huge country, no one can get so close, so quick and with so many solutions, to the customer and seller as we can. The platform for financial solutions really leverages the company's results as well as our passion for really fulfilling the dream and being present in the day-to-day lives of the Brazilians. And all of this is also going to be available at the disposal of the marketplace and in the country. Our infrastructure really contains all of the Via ecosystem with values like simplicity and protagonism. At Via, everyone's innovating. We all create, and we are all owners. And for quite a while, we've had a lot of initiatives related to preserving the planet, caring for people and governance. And ESG is a commitment, and it's really in all of the organization's objectives and goals. I am sure you guys are going to really love this day today with us. It's the Investor Day for a very renewed company that joined the game to win, with appetite to go and reach levels no one has ever reached. We want to be the relationship and consumption platform for all Brazilians. This is the Via you will see more about. Come with us and let's imagine new ways because the future is today. [Presentation]

Thank you so much, Roberto. It was great to have this moment with Via. And throughout the Via Investor Day, we will be keeping up with the real purchase experience of 2 Via customers. [ Aline ] from Goiania, she discovered that she's missing a few things in her laundry area at home. And [ Christiane ], from Recife is like -- would like to set -- have a special surprise for her mother. She's rethinking and redesigning her kitchen. She needs a new refrigerator. So she's researching prices and models on this category where Via is the complete leader. And she's going to choose these products on the super app at Casas Bahia and she'll receive this during the Via Investor Day. And just like everything at Via starts off with the customer focus, I will invite Ilca to tell us how customers are always at the center of the business.

For sure, customers are always at the center, and I would also like to greet everyone that's here watching us today. I hope you guys are all doing well. Well, a big strong point of Via is our customer base and the relationship we have with each one of them. As Roberto mentioned, if before, we were a retailer working with durable multichannel items, now we will be the relationship platform and consumption platform for Brazilians. The experience we're going to provide is going to be easier, frictionless, customized and proactive for everyone that is relating to our brands. And in order to achieve this objective, our transformation is following some important guidelines. We will be transformed from a company that is channel-centric to a customer-centric company, with low frequency in purchases to various occasions of purchases, access to credit to solutions for credit that are digital and available on your phone, from a standardized experience to a customized experience. And based on the strategic perspective, we will unleash the company's growth based on 3 focuses: the first one is by increasing the customer base; second, customer loyalty based on the increase of the LTV; and third place, the continuous and ongoing improvement of the experience. This is only possible because Brazilian is -- Brazil is in Via. Our customer base has 97 million people registered that have already connected with us or still relate to us. This is basically the entire population that's economically active in Brazil. Now I'm going to tell you how we've been structuring our operations to generate value through this customer-centric vision. We've disseminated the strategy throughout the organization. This is a huge cultural change and also a mindset change. And we've started off by a crucial point, which was incorporating the customer experience indicators at the results metrics of the entire organization, the NPS and the growth of the active customer base are already included in the corporate goals. And this is not an initiative for exclusive department. It's the entire company committed to customers really at the center of our business. Another big fundamental change was the reorganization in the CRM and data teams. We have a team that is multidisciplinary, focused on each of the parts of the cycle of its customer's life. It's like a concierge at Via taking care of the relationship. This is a team that has a growth in data-driven as well as agile methodology and mindset to be able to make quick decisions. At the first months, we already had an increase of over 70% in the conversion rates on our proprietary channels. This kind of data intelligence also served the online sellers or Call Me on WhatsApp channel. Through this, we have the indicator for shopping carts grow consistently. The Call Me on WhatsApp is an e-commerce model that humanized as well as an instrument to reduce the customer acquisition cost, CAC. We understand each customer is really unique, and we recommend products and services that are adequate and relevant to their life cycle with us. And like this, we can use this as an important leverage for our lifetime value. In order to do this, as I've mentioned before, we have those 3 fronts for performance: increasing our customer base, loyalty and customer experience. The first main focus with the acquisition with an investment -- an intelligent investment, we've reduced the cost of acquisition for customers. Now we've increased participation in proprietary channels. The store channel and the banking channels are strong points here. And the digitalization in Brazil also brought in a broader demographic profile. We've increased penetration in the A and B classes by 13%, and we have more young people in our customer base. What's in the desire or wish list of the young consumers, our brands can deliver. We are the biggest seller for PlayStation 5, Samsung phones and iPhones. And I also need to highlight a shift in the level of our operations in social media. According to Socialbakers, in the last quarter of 2020, Casas Bahia was the second brand with the greatest engagement on Facebook, basically just behind a famous reality show. So now in this first quarter, Casas Bahia and Pontofrio had the biggest engagement on Twitter and on Facebook. Well, now the second main focus is generating greater customer loyalty. And here, our apps have a very important role, whether we're talking about the apps of the different brands or for banking, our focus is to make our apps super apps. So through the app, customers have already found over 75 new categories of products. Then we are considered in many different purchase occasions and use occasions. The frequency of purchases on the app are 30% greater than in the exclusive store channel. Our monthly active users grew 10x more in the last 24 months. And the mobile channel is already participating with 80% of the e-commerce sales. The omnichannel strategy is also very powerful as a leverage for loyalty. Just to give you an idea, multichannel customer will bring in double the amount of revenue than a mono-channel customer. This multichannel customer spent 2.3x more than a physical store customer. And the recurrence is also happening half of the time compared to store clients only. And then you have purchase frequency that's 2x higher. So multichannel customers that are also using the CDC have an average expense that's 50% higher than customers that don't have these means of payment. And when customers use the banQi channel, then frequency is even greater. With the expansion of the marketplace, our strategy for recurrence is going to gain even more traction. Customers that buy on 1P and also on 3P have a repurchase rate of 50%. They are 2x more loyal than customers that only buy on 1P. Now let me give you an example of Marcelo's story. Marcelo is 45 years old, and he represents our customer with the highest lifetime value. He has a purchase frequency of 4x per year, an average expense of 4.2x greater than average. He is totally multichannel, and he buys on 1P as well as on 3P. And 60% of his purchases are present in one of our own proprietary channels. Besides this, he uses banQi in his day-to-day operations for bank transfers or to pay bills through PIX. So we are completely focused on increasing the company's LTV by increasing participation in these types of profiles like Marcelo on our customer base. Then the third front, our focus that's extremely essential to complete this customer-centric strategy is customer experience. In 2020, we have shifted operations in some main fronts. And for 2021, we're going to go even beyond this. Some numbers are: our NPS will be a lot more than just a survey. It will be an actual management tool. We've modernized data capturing. We have expanded the amount of journeys within this survey, and we were able to map out many different customer situations, which allows us to be more precise on how and where to operate. We've also created a specific committee for physical stores, at the regional level, in our subsidiaries and even with our salespeople, which gives us a very important geographic presence. Each manager in a store has an app that measures the performance of his store and each person in his team. With this, he can set some specific action plans to improve customer experience. Now Via customers also have very precise monitoring of the orders. Our first call resolution index grew 20 percentage points in just 1 year. From this, WhatsApp represents 65% operating 24/7. And the WhatsApp service and URA services reduced contacts by 11%. The formal complaint indicator at PROCON has reduced 46% in the last quarter of last year compared to the previous period. So we're set at the right path to be among the best assessed players on Reclame Aqui. Pontofrio already has the RA 1000 and we have the consistent improvement of our scores, even with volumes of sales that are way above market averages. Another important progress was classifying our apps at the app stores. In just a few months, we've reached the best scores, which demonstrates that the users are more satisfied with our user experience. And of course, I must mention the numbers of the Casas Bahia Play. Casas Bahia Play was one of our initiatives that was most recent for the evolution of the app to be able to add value, generate loyalty, increase recurrence as well as the MAU. So the consumption of entertainment has grown a lot. And we know that streaming services are still not accessible to all Brazilians. This is why we started this partnership with Paramount+ to be able to strengthen our strategy for acquisition on the app as well as recurrence. So Casas Bahia Play has been around for about a month. And the numbers are demonstrating that we're in the right direction. Now the amount of downloads in the app for Casas Bahia in these first 30 days grew 50%. The app conversion had an improvement of 42% compared to the previous period. And customer feedback about this has been extremely positive. And when we talk about Casas Bahia Play, we are like -- we would like to call someone very special that participated in this project, who can help me to share some more news.

Hey, let's explore some other galaxies.

Hey, CB, it's so cool to see you here. I'm going to take advantage of your presence to give everyone some more news. Open up the Casas Bahia app and show us. Wow, on Casas Bahia Play, we're going to also launch our own customer loyalty program, the Casas Bahia VIP, which will be accessing millions of customers. Very cool, thank you so much for your presence here at our event. Well, as part of our strategy for loyalty and increasing recurrence, we have an important loyalty program that's going to be for free, no subscription fees. We will have new benefits. And the main ones will be free entertainment, as you've seen, free transportation, special deals and coupons. And to summarize it, these are many, many advantages. Now you have the first loyalty program that's already starting off with many participants and benefits every month. This is Casas Bahia VIP, free transportation, discounts on services, many coupons, exclusive services, fun on Casas Bahia Play with the best brands and no subscription fees. A program that really looks like Brazil with many advantages. This is Casas Bahia VIP. Well, I've saved something for last, which is a very important change in the Pontofrio brand that's been around for many, many years, very valued and recognized and a pioneer in social media that always transmitted innovation. Now you'll see the big leap. The brand became a lot younger, useful, innovative and brought in important protagonism to a reverent personality that's very digital. The brand will also bring in the omnichannel attributes, a focus on technology, categories and progress in market share regionally. So without further ado, Pontofrio is now just Ponto. And this new brand is setting dialogue, experimenting, testing and saying whatever it thinks and invites you to create together. Ponto is about rupturing with the status quo or obvious. It's about having a point of view. It's straight to the point. [Presentation]

Our customers have already approved this, and we hope you loved it also. Well, all of these changes are always thought of with the intention of expanding the business and transforming the lives of our customers, companies and those involved in the Via ecosystem, and I would like to invite you all to always imagine new pathways, imagine new ways. Via is not only imagining new ways but fulfilling them. And now I'm curious to know what our customers have chosen.

Hey, Ilca, let me tell you what's new. They've already chose what they want. [ Christiane ], for example, researched options, models, the best payment method, and she found the refrigerator searching for to make her mom super happy. And [ Aline ] chose the Omo laundry soap kit for her clothes. She wants to use this today, so she had speed and an incredible experience on the super app at Casas Bahia. This is unending innovation that transforms the Via marketplace. And in order to talk about this, I'll pass the word on to Helisson. Helisson, the word is all yours. Thank you. Welcome.

Hey there, it's fantastic to see Via migrating from a business model that's thought of through sales, products and margins with a focus on customer relationship, customers at the center of our decision-making. This lifetime value mindset that Ilca has presented is incredible. One of the components that's most important to increase LTV is recurrence. And in order to generate this recurrence, we have basically 3 leverages: offering a greater assortment, greater categories and frequent consumption. And in order to do this, we need to have a strong marketplace. We've been advancing quickly to become the biggest marketplace in Brazil. It's true, in the first year of our management, we prioritized 1P in order to ensure one of our strong points, generating margins and offer better experiences to our customers. Now in 2021, this is the year of our marketplace. This has really taken a leap. The GMV at the marketplace, what we call 3P, grew 90% in 2020, going on to BRL 3.2 billion. And all of these results were achieved on the older platform. But now we've switched our onboarding and sellers' platform mid-February. And now to give you an idea, a process that would take over 140 days is only taking 3 minutes. The results were really capturing over 10,000 sellers only in the month of March. This is more than the entire volume of sellers that were registered in all of 2020. Now we have 26,000 sellers and we're still growing. Our expectations are to have between 70,000 and 90,000 sellers by the end of this year. With more sellers and an upload and product management system, the offer of SKUs and 3P has been growing exponentially as well. Now we have over 24 million SKUs, and we're still growing. Volume is important, but quality is also essential, especially for us because the relationship with the customers and brands is different than in some pure players. So that's why we are committed to offering a huge scope of categories complementing our offer for 1P. The good news is that on 3P, the long tail categories only represent 30%, which represents major opportunities for growth still. This is incremental and should not rob from sales on 1P or 3P that are already in-house. The origins of the products and compliance of our sellers is constant work, and we are committed to working within the legal terms. The capillarity of the offer is also important. Availability of these products all over Brazil, in addition to the capacity of our logistics through the Envvias program allows for cheaper costs. And we have to deliver within our deadlines. And so the control for the post-sales process is also following the rigorous quality standards of 1P. In order to manage this with excellence, Via has created an internal exclusive center with stability in our business. We have a robust team that's very experienced who will offer 3P in a very similar structure as 1P, with the same focus as Abel Ornelas, our COO's perspective. We're going to be developing new categories. We're going to have dedicated teams for quality, care and services. And our operation for 1P is very profitable. This means that we can fund growth in 3P if necessary. We know we can almost zero the marketplace commission to accelerate its growth without impacting our results. At the same time, we are very careful to create a healthy relationship with sellers. So we don't charge for transportation or for sales that are canceled by customers. And we have something new here to announce. The GMV goal is going to be one of the bonus indicators for the entire organization. Sellers don't really have like a marketplace they're passionate about. It's not like a football team. At the end of the day, they just want to sell regardless of what the channel is. And I've worked with this for over 17 years. I know that sellers want to sell with a platform that has high demand, low cost and good services with technological advantages of the online sales, with setups in multiple marketplaces, social media, it's really simple. You just have to -- it's just one click away. And this means that the offer of products in 3P is going to become almost like a commodity. And if there was a gap between us and the other players, this is solved. And Via is a giant that's entered to really win the game. And now we're going to be talking a little more about our strategy. We have clarity in our planning. We're going to work in both fronts, unleash value in the marketplace and generate new opportunities for value through the marketplace itself. There are strategic pillars that Via has that are our own, that are in-house and working towards this in the marketplace gives us a competitive advantage no one else has. So let me share a bit of our vision on this, join me. Our customer base, this is something that only Via has, and Ilca showed you some details. Brazil is inside Via, creating the biggest opportunity for sellers. We have the omnichannel approach, no barriers and no prejudice. Via is pop. Our brands are known nationally for decades, and they've just been revitalized and renewed. They have an actual advantage. They have huge affinity with the expansion of long-tail products. The 1P assortments and the consumer categories that really affect the GMV on e-commerce, we are dominant. And many of these, we represent over 6% share. And we are already a destination. And one of the most important categories, generate excellent traffic in all of the channels. And we also have Bartira with an excellent recall rate when we attract the infinite offer of 3P as well, because when you add 1P and 3P, you'll generate demand that's proportionately greater. The more you can supply, the more demand and Via will enter this virtuous cycle. Logistical infrastructure, all of this experience we have at 1P, working to the service of 3P for light items and heavy items. So we're out there to win. And Gasparini will get into more details about this, telling you how our fulfillment in the multi-marketplace will work as well. Omnichannel sales, this is something only Via has. We have over 20,000 sales reps that are trained and prepared and now receive commissions to also sell the 3P assortment at the stores and through the WhatsApp tool. Our own payment book. Once again, the crediário, this is something that only Via has. This is a game-over condition. We have the Casas Bahia payment book that's famous all over the world, all over the country, offering credit to whoever needs. And now it's going to be leveraging the 3P sales as well as well as being an important leverage to attract new customers, attracting old customers with a low CAC and also increasing LTV. And Calabro will get into more details about this. We know that it's hard to be profitable in the marketplace. Just take a look at the results that have been disclosed up ahead. You have a bunch of players offering subsidies, cash-backs, discounts. And when you start thinking about this, there's something Via doesn't have. We're not concerned about how to pay for all of this if we want to accelerate this like the other players. We are unique in 1P. We have logistical efficiency and we have credit capacity to accelerate 3P and really deliver positive results to our shareholders. Once again, moving on to strategy again. Now I want to talk about parallel actions and news that's going to generate value so sellers can operate with efficiency and competitiveness. This topic makes me remember the last Investor Day when we were presenting a desired road map. And even despite the pandemic, we were able to deliver everything. Now we have a new road map that's focused on solutions for sellers. And I can make it -- for sure, Via is a lot more prepared to actually deliver all of this. Now the evolution of the platform. Our platform has a lot of improvement to create and generate the apps and provide some recommendations, reviews, messages, Q&A areas, et cetera. There's so much, a lot of good step-up ahead. Via ads. The second -- in line with the Amazon ads model, we're going to launch a new solution for ads so that our sellers can announce their products and leverage their sales. The rewards -- the prize club (sic) [ rewards club ] is an incentive program for our over 20,000 sales reps. It's gamified, and it's very mature. And it has its own currency even. Now it's going to be open for sellers on 3P to set up their own campaigns and talk to our sellers directly. The advantage club (sic) [ loyalty club ], where you have greater affinity and they will receive benefits so they can sell more with us. The virtual consultant with AI. We have a virtual consultant that will provide opportunities, pricing and freight opportunities. The university of the marketplace where sellers can manage their business even more. This includes commercial management, professionalizing people so that they can learn how to issue invoices and open up companies, and everything has content that's gamified and personalized. Then you have the banQi credit. We're also going to be offering credit for working capital and to offer more payment methods to the sellers. Post sales for 1P to 3P. Through Envvias, we're going to provide reverse logistics as well as services to install furniture, extended warranty and other services from 1P that are going to be applicable to 3P as well. B2B from 1P to 3P. This channel will now be available to 3P as well, integrating the assortment of sellers on partnering channels. This segment has grown a lot, and we're going to be going through this opportunity together with our sellers. International marketplace, the famous CBT, so these are sellers from Asia that are going to start selling their products here on our platform with a lot of safety and an excellent experience. At Via, we believe in the power of the stores integrated in an omnichannel approach. It's not about choosing but about adding. And this is how we're imagining new ways. A lot of people may believe that it's like contradictory to combine marketplace with physical stores. Well, that's why I'm going to end my talk here as we start talking about expansions for new stores. We're going to have a mega store in São Paulo and another 120 stores this year still. Half of them will be in the North and Northeast. All of them have already been set up to work with 1P and 3P, and they are also a logistical hub for the last mile. In this mega store, in the city of São Paulo, [indiscernible] you'll have 18,000 square meters filled with the best available when it comes to the digital experience. And there'd also be the 3P assortment on-site. You can test, check it out and buy it right on the spot. Everything I told you about unleashing value is really something only Via can offer. And when it comes to all of this news, Via will still -- 2021 is really the year of our marketplace, and I'll be back in just a bit to talk about technology. Helena, it's all yours now.

Well, while you guys were watching this great presentation by Helisson, our clients have already paid for their products that are going to be arriving soon. And of course, they used the marketplace and purchase channels at Via. There, they could buy a product they love as well as everything they need for their day-to-day. And besides finding a huge assortment of products, they also choose how they prefer to pay and there are many conditions or options for payments. Check out [ Christiane ] used the digital payment book. [ Aline ] used her banQi card. And when we talk about banQi, that's a great opportunity to invite Andre Calabro as he introduces the Via financial solutions platform. Join us, Andre?

Thank you so much for joining us today. That's it, Via has a lot of solutions available, many different possible ways of funding purchases. And if Helisson was talking about Via winning the marketplace game, I can certainly say that we also win when it comes to financial solutions platform. And now I'll show you just how this happens. Our solution started off in retail, and they were transformed into the biggest platform financial solutions in the market, including banQi, our digital account; our famous payment book that's been modernized and is now available to our customers in the digital version as well; as well as our credit cards for Casas Bahia and Ponto; and the new vertical, our recently incorporated [ Hedge Seller ], our Celer Network that will connect us with the micro-entrepreneurs and small businesses all over Brazil. Customers that use our financial solutions really portray the reality in Brazil. Average income is BRL 2,000 in Brazil, and we represent all of the age ranges among our customer base, 22% from 18 to 25 years old; 31% from 26 to 35; and 34% between 36 and 45 years of age. Our customers are present in all of the national territory, 50% in the South and Southeast and the other 50% in other regions with a special highlight on the North and Northeast with 33% of the total. Besides this, women represent 48% of our customer base. And if there's someone that really understands the lives of the Brazilians, it's us because we have decades dedicated to the credit business. And through this, we have the Via platform for financial solutions. We are already a very competitive platform. In the last 2 years, over 15 million customer -- millions of customers use our solutions. Among these, 11 million on the payment book, 2 million on banQi and 2.5 million in co-branded cards. Ilca and Helisson have already highlighted the importance of recurrence and the strategies adopted to increase LTV for the Via customers. In the financial solutions, this is pretty much the same thing as well. The millions of banQi accounts have high recurrence, 7x more purchases in 90 days with a total of BRL 440 million TPV. And we have a low cost of acquisition for customers. We are the only digital account with over 1,000 banks spread around the country with our physical stores, basically where customers can cash and also perform payments and transactions. Our physical presence and the trust of the Casas Bahia brand, along with our services and the teams in the stores are fundamental so that customers that are in the bank system have the trust they need to have this transaction on a digital account. Our payment book, which is very important as a competitive advantage and a leverage for customer loyalty is available to all Brazilians. Now we have over 14 million customers that are preapproved, with 3.3 million active customers. In the physical version, we reached BRL 6.4 billion in our portfolio with production above BRL 750 million in digital that's only been available for 6 months. We've already built a portfolio with BRL 300 million. This is an open ocean (sic) [ open sea ] solution, and it's available to over 25 million consumers all over Brazil. Our Casas Bahia card and the Ponto card have an average monthly TPV of BRL 1.5 billion with more than 2.5 million active customers, exclusive advantages in our brand and high recurrence. And is also the [ Hedge Seller ], the Celer Network with BRL 1 billion in the TPV with the transactions using the credit cards with multiple brands in the last 12 months. Now I'm going to tell you a little bit about how this financial solutions platform works. So we have solutions for individuals that brings in new methods for access to consumption and multiple offers for credit, such as personal loans, credit cards and, of course, the famous Casas Bahia payment book. In the super app, banQi, customers will find an offer of products and services, such as exclusive Casas Bahia offers and special deals. Everything is really simple and extremely convenient. And since we're data-driven in essence, we use data for customer behavior so that we can also offer programs for financial education and personal finances through our platform. With the Celer Network, we have solutions -- acquired solutions available to over 50,000 businesses, and we still have 120 fintechs that are connected with the Celer capturing process. This is a virtuous cycle that never stops. And we're not stopping because banQi has just launched the bank account for small businesses, offering credit solutions directly through the credit card machines that are connected to the Celer Network, which includes the anticipation of receivables for businesses that are connected and can invest in their business as well as offer credit directly to customers such as personal credit and the payment book. So guys, this is a powerful tool to increase conversion and loyalty. And if we were able to get to where we reached through the payment book, now it's going to be even broader because it's digital and available online and at banQi. And just to highlight a bit more about the benefit, it will be available through the credit card machines for the Celer Network. So these financial solutions feed the Via ecosystem, increase purchase power for Brazilians, open up new connection channels with our customers, reduce the cost of transactions and increase loyalty and LTV. So certainly, this is a major virtuous cycle. I know you guys are probably asking yourselves about what's already done. And so now I'm going to show you some of this. The payment book can already be used through banQi, which means that customers will have more convenience so that they can pay for their installments or renegotiate any delayed payments. So check it out. It's really simple. And from now on, we've launched hiring the payment book service through banQi as well for customers that have a preapproved credit limit, and they don't have to leave their houses to do this. So let me show you something here. Customers can simulate the desired amount, choose the amount of installments that fits into their pocket and then they can hire this from then on. Everything is done in a very simple, quick method. And it's very safe. And in March, we've launched our personal loan program. In its first phase, we had a pilot with an audience that was controlled, and it was very successful. And now in June, we're going to be launching this to all of our banQi customers. Check it out, it's really interesting. Customers can tell us about their basic information like their monthly income, their profession and what they're going to use the cash for. They can choose the amount desired, how many installments they want to pay it in and then they just have to accept the terms and conditions. Something else that we're going to be offering by the end of 2021 is the evolution of our prepaid banQi card using the multiple card for credit and debit. And all of this, plus the news with the super app for banQi and our connection with the physical stores will generate high levels of recurrence to our ecosystem. And as we talked about Super App, that reminded me about the banQi Shop. On banQi Shop, customers have benefits to buy on Casas Bahia stores with discounts on products, progressive cash-back and they can also use the payment book to perform their purchases. Check it out, it's really simple. They choose a product they want to buy according to their available balance in their account, choose their payment methods. For example, here, they use the payment book. And after this, they just have to keep up and monitor until the product arrives at their house. So we also have an offer for recharging phone credit, the transportation cards, buying credit for content on video games, entertainment and our super app is going to be the most complete in Brazil, with products and services that include all of the desires and needs of our target audience. Now about the legal entity bank account with a focus on micro-entrepreneurs and freelances, this will soon be available to customers on the Celer Network, Via sellers and delivery guys from ASAPLog, our last mile logistic cooperation. Follow along, customers tell us about some essential or basic registration data, submit some mandatory documents. And in just a few minutes, they've opened up their bank account, and it's ready to be used. So now as you've seen, our opportunities are huge. The relevant and expansion and coverage at Via, our leverages for growth, and we understand that we are present in a market context of huge and underpenetrated. In Brazil, we have 105 million people that have at least 1 minimum wage. Among these, 43% don't have a bank account and only 33% have access to credit. We believe that these people are going to have approximately BRL 500 billion transacted in 5 years. And we are going to be ready to have this inclusion and growth of consumption among this population. So our platform is ready for inclusion of new people into the bank system and offering credit for the class C in Brazil. I'm sure that this is the best way to make this more accessible and to encourage entrepreneurship among Brazilians. We are the access method of the invisible people that represent over 40 million people. We believe the financial inclusion is providing freedom and opportunities for people to choose pathways and fulfill their dream. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much, Andre, and I hope you guys are enjoying the Via Investor Day. And [ Christiane ] and [ Aline ] had their purchases approved, and they are at their countdown to wait for the delivery of the products. And we are too, and Via is going to invite customers to really imagine new ways and fulfill dreams. And behind all of this, we have a lot of excellent operations. So now, Fernando Gasparini, it's up to you.

So I want to thank you for all of you guys that are taking advantage of this Via Investor Day. And our fundamental strategy is logistics. We have the best -- we have 27 distribution centers, over 1,050 hubs. And we have over 1,600 cross-docking centers with over 4,000 vehicles performing the deliveries daily. We have 200,000 last-mile delivery guys. And all of this is in an asset-light model. We are omnichannel, something that a lot of people talk about, but that's not very much quantified. So over 50% of our online sales go through the physical stores and the pickup from store model as well as using the store as a last-mile hub. And the future is even more promising because our strength in 1P was expanded to be able to serve the marketplace with the Envvias option with the posting and collection process. And I have information that may surprise some of you guys. Over 50% of the sellers are already using Envvias. In the third quarter, we're going to also operate with heavy items within our network. On the fourth quarter, sales with the open sea partners are going to be able to have fulfillment and the other distribution center at Minas Gerais. And our stores that already have in 1P are also going to operate as a hub in the marketplace, the delivery and the pickup and also with reverse logistics. And you can't imagine your way in logistics without the intensity of the technology. We think logistics go way beyond physical. It's digital, supporting the operation with total systemic integration. And just to give you an idea, we have over 200 technology professionals that are dedicated exclusively to logistics. Let me give you an example. We have the best WMS in the market that's already been deployed at Via with a cloud-based version. With this application, Via will be using artificial intelligence, machine learning to optimize the processes at our warehouses, keeping up with the standards of consumption for our customers. And not to mention ASAPLog, a log tech that's acquired 1 year ago that's been integrated in record time. It's now the most important operator for last mile at Via with almost 300,000 delivery guys that are partners and registered. This month, we started an important effort using electric vehicles, strengthening our commitment towards sustainability as well for the last mile. And all this technology and innovation would not make sense if we were not delivering to our millions of customers what they really expect, a greater coverage, lower -- smallest timing and the lowest cost. About 15% of the deliveries happen on the same day and over 40% happened in 24 hours. And all of this has a level of services 98%. And there's no disclaimer here, guys. We deliver light and heavy items anywhere in Brazil, in the capital cities or in the interior. And as we talk about the interior, I need to highlight that over 50% of our deliveries are done in the interior in Brazil. So I haven't showed you everything, but there's more deliveries now in 2021. ASAPLog is going to become an independent transportation gateway, committing to our efficiency in costs and operational logistics. And we're going to have the same-hour delivery. Our operation will have delivery options in 1, 2 and 3 hours. And I want to highlight that we're going to start our [ Posto-me ] operation as well, offering seller this solution that -- which is a complete logistical solution for storage and distribution. And what's more, we will also provide our network for delivery and reverse logistics to the sellers and general public. And let me talk to you about heavy items because we are the ones that know about this the best. We're also starting off a design of the scheduled delivery for heavy-duty items. And we have same-day delivery, that's also going to be extended to the marketplace. But there's more. We will also include the capacity for ultrafast deliveries. And in the second semester, we're going to have the consumer-to-consumer delivery platform, where consumers can hire our services for transportation for heavy items or light items to donate, transport or dispose products adequately. And all of this will include marginal investments in physical infrastructure because we're going to extract all of our potential in our network of distribution center stores and partners, really leveraging the strength of our ecosystem. Within this physical store network, another strong point of Via, we're going to continue to grow and expand its coverage. Our 120 new stores this year are going to add on at least another 100 cities with our physical presence, which will leverage our sales online even more in these markets and will expand our logistical coverage and reach. This is all part of our long-term plan of adding hundreds of new cities to our Via network. Finally, I'm very happy to mention that by 2021, we've already delivered 99.5% of the cities in the country. We have 5,541 municipalities that have already received at least one of our products at Via. So now I want to highlight my complete trust and the teamwork of the logistics and technology team. These teams are committed and they have a real success mindset with customers at the center that have been really working on this revolution at Via, which positions us to grow online in the marketplace and to go way, way beyond retail. Thank you so much for your time. And now I would like to check out our customers that are going to be receiving what they've just bought. Let's check it out.

So the purchase journeys were completed successfully. Let's check it out. The refrigerator [ Christiane ] bought left the distribution center and followed its route to [ Donna Nai ], [ Christiane's ] mother. And check it out, the refrigerator is a gift from [ Christiane ] to her mother. It arrived very fast and check out how Donna Nai is so happy. Now the delivery guys are going to send back the packaging material, which is what they're really concerned with when it comes to the environment. This is really, really cool. And now let's go on to [ Aline ] that received the Omo kit and loved the experience, and she marked it with 5-star experience. Now she already knows about this. And she's going to use the CB Play, and she'll have the experience so interesting and will reflect the NPS of the customer. And this is going to be even better. Everyone is enjoying the products and services and benefits that Via provides. Customers are at the center of everything with the best experience possible. From the purchase to the delivery of the products, everything seems very simple, and it needs to be like this. This is what Via wants. But this apparent simplicity may not demonstrate all of the technology involved and Helisson's coming back to talk about this now. So now, Helisson, the word is yours.

I'm back. Did you notice that our team is really excited and really want to win the game in the marketplace, financial solutions and logistics? Well, the truth is we also have been progressing a lot in many different fronts when it comes to technology, innovation and new business opportunities. Let's start off by talking about technology. We have evolved 5 years into, and results can prove this. Digital sales represented 50% of our GMV. This is technology, pure technology that required -- that meets the requirements of our customers and it's adapting in an agile manner to handle external factors. Via has operated in shorter cycles to have ongoing innovation. And I'm going to tell you how this works. Our technology became one of the strategic advantages to improve the offer to customers and sellers, really leverage efficiency, renew the company's culture, retain and attract more talent. And we have support constantly to invest and make our technical team one of the strongest in the country. And I'm talking about new leadership that are operating in different segments, more developers, more suppliers, services and solutions that can really make Via imagine and deliver new ways of doing things. Let me give you some success cases. We had 2 Black Fridays with record volumes and sales. And we also had the support of the digital acceleration during the pandemic, making digital sales leap from 23% in the fourth quarter of 2019 to almost 50% in the same quarter of 2020. We also had the launch of the Call Me on WhatsApp, which was a social selling case all over the world according to Facebook. And we also had the launches of the apps for Casas Bahia, Ponto and also Pontocom. And we should highlight as well that the important leverage in our marketplace to help us win the game, with the increase of SKUs, new sellers and GMV. We also had all of the necessary support to provide a new meaning for our stores that are already digital. We have some deliveries, the mobile sales, the new pickup from store as well as some extensions of banking and logistics in the stores and so many other achievements that have already been mentioned by my colleagues. All of this technology, which is now called Via Hub, is already half working with the new deliveries, with the business areas and really keeping up with the most modern trends in retail all over the world, with the open platform approach, agile methodologies that are decentralized, and this model has really worked. If in the last 1.5 years, we advanced a lot, our plan is to keep on progressing. First of all, because we have already hired a lot of important people. And by the end of this year, we're going to be hiring another 600 tech professionals. This is something new for you. And check it out. Check out these numbers. Now we already have 1,800 Via techies and 4 development centers in Brazil and 1 in the U.S. By the end of the year, we're going to have 2,400. We have already absorbed the I9XP start-up with over 150 professionals that are really focused on e-commerce and marketplace solutions, including our new CTO, Edson Tavares. We already have over 300 projects being implemented and planned that will be delivered this year still. And these projects are distributed between 21 different journeys, 57 tribes and 180 squads operating simultaneously. And all of these numbers are going to be reflected in 2021 still, through better conversion, through the apps, better online marketing, better CRM that's even more robust, the same-day deliveries, the expansion of the online CDC and other progresses that I've already demonstrated before. And all of this is to make Via more and more like the platform for relationship and consumption in Brazil. It's very important to mention the biggest asset in this company are the customers and their information. And that's why we've redefined all of the data intelligence structure in the company. Now we have over 200 professionals that are specialized with data scientists, BI specialists, machine learning developers and a lot more to really enchant our customers in marketing, pricing, logistics, payment booklets. The team is in line with the LTV vision. And Via is also ready to promote a technologically feasible environment to be able to promote innovation and new business even more. And I want to share with you that our ambition goes way beyond just recovering and placing Via at the leadership in the omnichannel retail world. We want to make Via one of the biggest and most admirable companies in Brazil. We want to go way beyond retail. And we already have 2 successful cases. In less than 1 year, we acquired, connected, integrated and combined ASAPLog and banQi, as you've already heard from Gasparini and Calabro. We want to go way beyond. And our main focus is in 3 main expansion and innovation focuses that are already a reality at Via. Via Hub, with the organic expansion and the development internally between our technology and business departments to be able to create solutions that are closer to our core business. And we have M&A inorganic expansion with a focus on external solutions to shorten these pathways and the focus is in HR, human capital and technology to accelerate the marketplace, financial solutions and logistics. And something new here is the open innovation, a hybrid expansion that will approximate internal teams like the Via Hub with the universe of innovation and that will as well unite start-ups and other companies that will start working with us. A good example of this is we have the Distrito partnership, one of the biggest hubs for innovation in Latin America that's accelerating our process with mentoring services, events and courses, consolidating Via's culture, mapping our opportunities for investments. Well, are you ready? Because when it comes to open innovation, I want to give you something extremely new. A corporate venture capital with an initial value of about BRL 200 million in investments in start-ups in the next 5 years. This is innovation that's unending, and it's not stopping here. We launched Via Next, this program to set relationships with start-ups all over Brazil. Via Next is going to capture and select projects for future investments when it comes to retail tech, fintechs, logitechs. And Via Next is kind of like an umbrella that will contemplate different formats for investments that I'm going to share with you now. It starts off with acceleration and incubators and projects that we consider to be in the initial phases, then we also have the recently launched corporate venture capital for projects considered micro growth or mature projects. And also that we consider to invest in with other funds of venture capital to strengthen our presence in this start-ups world. And all of this is going to feed the pipeline for M&As. All of this is just the beginning. And our goal is to activate our full potential and really have a huge unicorn hub here at Via. We're going to be keeping up with the trends as Alibaba, Google Venture and so many other players. So now I want to invite Rosi to talk about culture and people. See you soon.

Thank you, Helisson, and hello, everyone. Thank you for being here with us today. I would like to start off by saying that everything that was done so far, everything that we were able to accelerate and will still be doing in Via is possible due to the incredible work performed by our team. And this is what I'm going to talk about, our culture, our soul. And as Roberto mentioned in the opening remarks, the future is now, and this soul is already pulsing. So you know that back then, in the turnaround phase, we renewed 2/3 of our leadership, which came from retail as well as from experience in completely different markets. We're talking about mindsets from industries, from real -- from retail consulting firms and start-ups and other segments as well. And now the intellectual capital in marketplace and logistics and technology is so important for the transformation and for our growth. We've invested a lot as well in training medium leadership. And now we have over 300 managers for regional stores being trained internally to take on, for the first time, positions of leadership. And it doesn't stop around here. The valorization of the personnel at home is extremely important. So we have leadership programs that are in line with the most modern forms of learning with ongoing education to strengthen the culture of our team, managing people and business performance. Our school has 4 main pillars: culture, personnel, performance and digital. Through these 4 pillars, our leaders become the propelling engine to really move towards the purpose and ambition at Via. In 2021, our over 3,000 leaders will have gone through the development programs. And this important engine will -- has just won even more strength. We're very proud to announce our first training program. We have 25 trainees entering Via in the next days. From the first phase of the funnel for hiring these professionals, our program started off with the essence of diversity. And as a result, we really nurture our culture, which is plural and rich that's, pulsing, accelerating and really helps us imagine new ways of doing things. Just as Caique imagined.

After 4 months in the process, I've just got the best news in 2021. I was approved to be part of the first training program in the company's history. One of the processes' goals was to identify invisible talent to regular big cities eyes. And I'm part of this group. I'm Black, I'm a homosexual, I am the son of a former sugarcane cutter. I started off working in social projects when I was 14 as a ProUni scholarship. I was the first person to complete university. Just as my story, I have met so many other stories all over Brazil. Congratulations Via for being so disruptive and inclusive with a humanized process that's really focused on the inclusion of diversity. I would like to thank the Via team that spared no efforts to make us feel special and welcome during the process. Thank you.

And in this belief that innovation comes from the diversity, we've mapped out our 46,000 employees through a survey to assess how much Brazilian diversity is actually represented at Via. Check it out, this is what we discovered. 54% of the Brazilian population self-declare as Black. I refer to black and brown. At Via, we have 54% employees that self-declare Black. Just as this, we have approximately 52% of the Brazilian population that are women, and at Via were 51% of the employees. Besides the richness of our regional culture, we're present in 21 Brazilian states and at the federal districts. But all of these riches in knowledge and know-how has something in common, the same basis, our values. A passion for people at Via. We believe in people, and we value each person's best attributes, protagonism and collaboration. At Via, we are responsible for our results, and we contribute to the overall result of the organization, simplicity and objectiveness. We believe that being objective and simple are always the best options. And ongoing innovation at Via, we believe that courage, boldness, diversity and learning generate innovation, and they really make tomorrow better than today. Self-performance and acknowledgment. At Via, we believe that our contribution is extremely important, and this makes us proud to belong and to deliver. Last year, we performed restructuring work for our governance. We reorganized our Board of Directors, restructured and established many different committees such as the Audit Committee, the Risk and Compliance Committee, the People Committee and Governance and the Finance Committee. These committees are all part of the governance agenda here at Via with the objective of improving the exercise of the functions of the Board. All of this is because we are searching for transparency and precision in our internal relationships and external relationships as well as the commitment of generating value for our stakeholders with a focus on the perennity of the business. Now besides this, we also have our ESG commitment with 2 important efforts this year. Every company has an ESG goal for 2021. And everyone in the company is also focusing on the objective of joining the Sustainability Index at B3 so that we can also participate in some international indexes. I'm very proud to be part of this organization and of imagining and building new ways of doing things with such a dedicated and skillful team that are real ambassadors of sustainability and diversity. Thank you so much. Amanda and Vanessa, now it's your turn.

ESG. Thank you so much, Rosi.

And thank you so much, Rosi.

Working with a focus on sensitive causes really make us imagine lots of new ways.

Yes, for sure, Amanda, and here, we're uniting our efforts to provide more fair coexistence between people, the environment and business. And now let's share some of the news.

Great. Yes, for sure. It's a pleasure. Well, when we think about social aspect, Via has promoted digital and financial inclusion for thousands of people through tools, digital tools, with banQi and also through the expansion of our marketplace. We would like to highlight our commitment to diversity and inclusion in all of our businesses, and we will be more active in this sense. Check out our commitment and goals to achieve this. This year, we will train our 46,000 employees so that they can have inclusive and prejudice-free services. We have 53% women occupying coordination positions and Black -- 29% of Black positions. In management and above, we have 4% women and 28% Black professionals. And our commitment until 2025 for management and above is to reach at least 42% of women occupying leadership and 45% Black professionals. This represents 80% of the diversity in the Brazilian census. I would also like to highlight what Rosi mentioned about the training program. Genuinely, it was built to value the stories of each individual. This is how Via represents Brazil in its great diversity as well as the future leaders program that prepares new store leaders for management, leadership and processes in addition to offering knowledge about the business areas. We have also intensified different groups, the Baobá, Via Prisma, Talentos Sem Limites and the Grupo De Genero. And we have expanded campaigns for awareness. This year, the Casas Bahia foundation is completing 60 years of existence and is maintaining its purpose of strengthening communities wherever we are present through investments and initiatives to train and professionalize our professionals, encouraging labor and income for use on micro-entrepreneurs. Last year, to support and minimize the impact caused by the pandemic, the foundation adapted to this difficult reality and invested 74% more than in the previous year to be able to provide for the emergency needs in communities, benefiting 411,000 people. With a focus on women, last year, the foundation also performed the emergency fund for entrepreneurial women called FEME, with direct donations of BRL 500 in cash to each one of the 2,000 entrepreneur women as well as training them online with 11,000 women. And March this year, we set partnerships with the Dona de Si Institute to train 100 micro-entrepreneurs in Rio de Janeiro. What about you, Vanessa? Share some of the news.

Sure. Let's go. One of our goals is to highlight and reinforce what Jose mentioned. We want to be listed on the B3 Sustainability Index. And in order to become a reference in this area, in our areas of performance, I'm going to talk about the commitments we've taken on for the environment. We are increasing the use of renewable energy in our operations as a goal up until 2025. We'll have 90% of all the energy used in the company with renewable and clean energy sources. We have a goal of making our operation more efficient. And we will reduce about 10% of the energy consumed in our operations. When it comes to waste, we have the REVIVA program, our recycling program that disposes all of the waste in all of Brazil through partnerships with 11 cooperatives. Like this, besides impacting the environment, we are contributing to over 250 lives and families. So we're going to start working with the important home appliance collection program. And in this first semester of 2021, we will reach 500 collectors at the Via stores. We will also expand the waste disposal initiatives and for electronics using our reverse logistics. And this year, we're also going to have a pilot program to expand this to refrigerators as well. And with the use of technology and logistics, we'll have more initiatives that reduce the emissions of CO2, reducing the use of trucks and expanding the use of lighter vehicles like motorcycles, bicycles and electric vehicles in our fleet. Our first vehicle arrived in April, and we're going to continue to expand this fleet in the next months. That's our message. We are working with each letter in the ESG. This is a strong point in our company, and we're very happy with the relevance that this topic has gained. And we're even more happy to know that Via is a protagonist in the sector. And we're very proud to be part of this company, right, Amanda?

Yes, very, very proud, Vanessa. Certainly. And this is how we imagine new ways. Well, now we're going to say goodbye, and we're going to thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Thank you so much. Helena, back to you.

Thank you so much, Vanessa. Thank you, Amanda. And now we're reaching the end of our presentation. But you can be sure that everyone here presenting today was very proud to share the achievements of the 46,000 Via employees. And we're very thankful for your participation as you're on the other side of your screen. And for the closing remarks, Roberto, the CEO at Via, will share some information, and then the Investor Day will move on to the Q&A. Thank you very much.

So you've seen how each pillar is really a transformed company, a company that's undergoing constant evolution. We are rewriting our story. We grew a lot. We gained market share, and now we have the appetite for a lot more. We will be the relationship and consumption platform for Brazil. And this is a huge turnaround in our traditional model. We are and are more and more, a customer-centric company. This is a mindset that's spread all over the organization. Customers are going to be in line and will generate the sustainable value. And in order to meet this customer that's at the center of our strategy, we can say that Via is digital and it is omnichannel. We know our story. We are already present in the day-to-day life of all the Brazilians. And in order to do this, marketplace is absolutely strategic. We will also provide to sellers and customers a structure in assets that only Via can have, and we'll advance in a way that the market is not currently. We will grow with profitability. And then we'll have Via's differential at the marketplace. Along with this, we have the new financial solution. We have banQi, our fintech, that's been growing in its customer base quickly exponentially and with acquisition costs that are the lowest in the market. We have credit solutions that customers know, and that now are -- they're learning to use in a digital way. We have the payment books online that are now digital and are connecting with young people as well as all the financial services that we've designed for sellers, customers that we know, and we know their names. And now imagine all of this with the technology that gives us access and knowledge about the entire population that's active in Brazil -- commercially active in Brazil. And when it comes to logistics, we have a major strong point. We have the best and greatest logistics in Brazil that delivers light and heavy items with a broad coverage in the capital cities on the interior with extremely high levels of service, a differential at Via that's really hard to achieve. And our technological transformation is really transferring all of this to the marketplace, offering sellers access to all of the advantages of a winning ecosystem. We've transformed each store into a logistical hub for relationships with a lot of technology, innovation and people that are passionate for serving customers. Our technology area, that's called the Via Hub, was vital for this turnaround. We've eliminated in less than 2 years any possible gaps, and we've already delivered solutions that place Via at the forefront of its competitors. Technology has changed this company and it's going to do a lot more. Innovation is now decentralized. We are ready to receive new partners and invest in start-ups to expand our ecosystem with creativity and business that generate value. And in order to make this all a reality, we need strong and a live culture. The richness of our human capital really sets the rhythm for transformation and the rhythm of this growth. The different ESG fronts are part of our strategy. We've designed goals to use the energy, CO2 emissions and reverse logistics, where we have the biggest environmental program in the entire sector in Brazil. Digitalization is really taking Brazilians directly to a very known territory by this. People that are not performing online purchases or have low recurrences on digital are very -- have a lot of intimacy with our brands that are strong and recognized and very inclusive in the Brazilian retail. The increase in penetration in e-commerce among Brazilians is going to go through Via and the unique strong points that you've seen here. You have -- we've understood that it's important to provide some parameters to support everything we presented today. And I want to show you how we look at the company in some years from now. I'm going to show you some of these public reports from research of some important market-leading banks, estimate an annual average growth of 6% for overall retail in the next 5 years. But the forecast reached almost BRL 2.6 trillion. In the same period, the estimates from the bank for the growth of online retail is an increase of 24% per year, reaching about BRL 500 billion. This sets a forecast of an increase in participation in e-commerce on the total retail sales of 19% by the end of 2025. Currently, it's at 8%. We are convinced that the increased penetration of e-commerce among Brazilians will go through Via based on this scenario on the strategy we presented for the increase of recurrence, LTV, TPV and GMV, we are estimating that our participation in the market will represent at least 20% of the online market in 2025. We are going to reach this level based on all of the content you've seen today. And this means that our online share should represent about 2/3 of our total GMV in 2025. So we hope to continue to grow at a rate that's 2x greater than the market average. I should also mention that we've already delivered this in 2020. And based on our current performance, we are confident that this ambition is completely feasible. And about banQi, it's still growing and evolving very quickly. In just 12 months, the TPV reached BRL 440 million. And we have a bunch of news in the road map. As Calabro presented, we have just delivered some important initiatives. And this road map should leverage the recurrence even more and help us to reach this transaction volume. Our estimate is to reach a breakeven on banQi in 2022. And we should have an evolution of 20x in the TPV by 2025. When we think about our offer of financial solutions, the payment book and the banQi should grow very quickly with an increase in the total portfolio of credit by 7x compared to the current level with the following composition. CDC off-line will continue to be the most relevant part with about 50% of share, while the online CDC should have about 35%. The difference will be the banQi products. And now we've presented what the future at Via will look like. I'm here representing now the entire team to ensure that we deliver this strategy based on a management model that has the speed that the market, our sellers and our consumers demand. This team has already proven, with numbers and consistency, the power that we have to deliver. You've met a new Via today. After so many quick transformations and excellent results, we can give ourselves the right to imagine new ways. And we're not going to stop doing this. Thank you to the over 500,000 investors. I'd like to thank our sellers that have been growing at a rhythm of 10,000 per month. Thank you to our business partners, and thank you so much to each one of our 46 employees. You guys are a huge team. Thank you, everyone, for sharing this experience and journey with us, and now you're invited to our Q&A session.

So everyone, did you enjoy that? It's a lot of new news for you. We had a little bit of instability, just to let you know that the replay of this event will be available on the official YouTube page and on Via's website. I'm Daniela Bretthauer. I'm the Director of Investor Relations for Via. Together with me today, I have Roberto and Padilha. And besides them, everybody who presented content today will be here available to answer any questions you may have. Starting now, I am going to mediate the questions, and I'm going to direct them to be answered by Via's team. [Operator Instructions] So let's go to the first question. It seems like we have a video question. Helena, please go ahead.

Hi, everyone. Good afternoon. Thank you, Dani, Roberto and Padilha for the presentation. Thank you to all the team. Our question is actually about the part that Roberto presented on market share in 2025 of the company. Because a point that we discuss a lot to measure the market share -- potential market share of companies is to measure within each category. So the question from Itau is that we want to try to understand better, is can you give us more detail, more color on which categories you are looking on to be able to reach the 20% of market share in 2025? And if that would mean that you are available to get into the category of food, for example? That would be the question.

Helena, thank you for the question. Well, we have as a priority our categories of 1B (sic) [ 1P ] that sustain most of our business, and we already have more than 70 more new categories in our marketplace. And this continues to be an expansion. After the month of March, we were completely on board in the seller. So in March, we had 10,000, and we're continuing on that rhythm more -- going more than that. And in June, we will probably have an amount of sellers and the assortment that we imagine for our final marketplace, which will not stop growing, but we're able to reach a good level of assortment, which will guarantee a high level of recurrence for us. We are not going to discuss here what are the categories that we are going to use to expand our business. Actually, we'll have an infinite assortment, and we want to be present with every kind of solution for consumers, specifically in food. In dry foods today, that will not be -- perishable foods today are not a priority for us today. So we are trying to look for consumers that we can provide for in the broadest way possible with everything that we presented today in this road map that we shared during this event. We understand that we have a lot of attributes that will generate a lot of recurrence for us. So our programs of bringing our consumers into loyalty programs or Bahia play that we already are live on, that's already on air. And every assortment that we have through marketplace will generate more assortments. And banQi is also going to give us a lot of recurrence. It's going to create a higher capitation of the payment book. So with the system that we have already will guarantee excellent levels of visitation for visitors and recurrence. And if we need to get into food, well, we don't have anything against perishable goods, but that's not our priority today.

That was very clear. We have another question. I don't know if it's going to come in through the video or through the chat box. So we have Luiz from BTG. Please go ahead.

So my question, Roberto, it's connected to what you commented already on guidance for 2025. It's along the lines of what kind of investment that you still imagine you'll make in Via. Both on the CapEx side -- I understand there's a whole structure already in place for you to apply the multichannels but also the acquisition of clients. You also commented on that, how you'll engage them, recurrence. Could you give us more details on what kind of investments we can expect from the next few years for you to be able to reach that guidance of -- that you mentioned?

Thank you for the question, Luiz. The main advantage that we have in Via's ecosystem is that it already has assets that are extremely relevant. What we're doing here is unleashing the potential of those assets. So most of what we demonstrated to you today doesn't demand a lot of investments. We're going to be unleashing our already existing assets. For investments to bring in new clients, I can say the following. Today, it's much cheaper to bring clients into Via than it was 6 months ago because we're optimizing our CRM with a lot of intelligence. And these programs that we are putting on air, be it the VIP or Casas Bahia play, for example, as you saw in the presentation, it's already going to bring us -- it's already bringing us fantastic recurrence. We don't need to make much higher investments than what we are doing today already to be able to reach the level that we are proposing to reach. We are extremely well positioned for this. Our programs, our relationship programs, our loyalty programs that we have are being very successful. It's much cheaper than any other kind of incentive that the market practices today. So we're being able to be much more efficient on this. And there's another important detail. We are improving at every month the conversion of income. So we are doing much better with the constant parts of the system that have been bringing us better conversions. We know exactly what our conversion is, our conversion rate, and we also know the conversion rates of our competitors. And I can say that we have still a lot of room for growth without any investments if we just improve our conversion. And that's the path we are following.

I think our next question is also coming through video, Eric from Eleven.

I think my question follows the same line of what Roberto just mentioned about conversion. So we saw during the year of 2020 and also in the beginning of this year a strong growth in accesses. We've seen a lot of data from [ Asina Web ] that proves this. And we see that there's also a gap with conversion we made in it. We calculated this according to GMV for access. And so that's the question. What do you see now? So to bring in clients, bringing in clients has been more cheaper more and more. So what would be a good balance so that we could focus on the continuity of growth of access? Or should we start focusing more on the growth of conversion? And at what speed can we expect this growth for conversion as well? Just so we can understand the effect of this growth in the client base that's so huge in terms of revenue now into the future.

Great, Eric. Thank you for that question. I would tell you both. So we are going to be going after better conversion, as I showed during the presentation. As we showed during the presentation, we have the potential to reach higher conversion rates than we have today, but we're also going to be going after new consumers and new clients. And the good news is that they're coming to us. So at the rate in which the online market grows, as I said here, they'll go through Via. People already know our brands. They already have a relationship with us. They already are loyal through our payment book. They've already experimented our ecosystem and our ecosystem is improving more and more. The deliveries that we showed during the event are real purchases with real deliveries in real time. So we're experimenting this sending our delivery. So if this level of service that we are connecting to Via's assets, plus all of the improvements that we've been bringing to the experience of consumers, gives us the certainty that at every moment, we'll have improvements in our conversion. But we're not going to only look for new consumers. We know that the market has low penetration online. In the online market, there's still a lot of things we can do. And we're going to continue to aggressively go after the clients who will want to join us. So we're in a winning ecosystem and a cool ecosystem for consumers to relate to us. So we are going to bring them in.

Thank you, Eric. Our next question also comes from the video from Richard from Bradesco. Richard, please ask your question.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you, Dani, and everyone who added to the conversation here. My question is that I want to ask you to comment a bit on the environment that you said that you wouldn't need any relevant OpEx or CapEx investments. But given that you have market share goals that are quite relevant that you shared with us this morning, I imagine that, that will probably impact the competitive environment. So your competitors will clearly be struggling with you for that market share. So I want to ask how you see that situation today, how do you think that will evolve throughout the next 12 or 18 months, and if you believe that, that will impact the gross margins or other operational assets.

Well, thank you so much, Richard, for that question. I think it's a vital question. So if we look at what happened last year, we gained almost 4 points of market share over an ultra-competitive market. The market in the second semester of last year was extremely competitive. We had cash backs of all different types, free delivery, free shipping, cash back for sellers to make the sales more aggressive or the offers more aggressive in the marketplace environment. So this has been happening ever since the beginning of the second semester of last year. And even with that, we were able to gain a lot of market share, relevant market share, and we didn't lose in profitability. So if we need to, even if the market becomes more critical, which I don't think is that easy either because if we look at the balances that are published, we can see that a lot of the margins went down out there. Ours didn't. If we will need to do something that is more aggressive, we have space to do that. We have our margins full. We have NPAs almost no one else has. That's what supports our business. Our sale of furniture is extremely relevant. Furniture is extremely profitable, and it brings a payment book with a very low level of default. So we gain a lot of money in credit, not only in credit for furniture but for the entire ecosystem of Via, and we are going to be adding a new functionalities for the marketplace, be it through credit or online sellers who are already selling. So the assets that we have right now lead us to believe that it will be -- that our risk rate of losing profitability will be quite low throughout time with the higher -- the growth of our online marketplace. As we saw in the beginning of last year, Via was more or less 25%, 26% of sales made online. And we started the year with half of our sales online, and we're maintaining that level, and our margins didn't drop. So we know exactly how to deal with that aspect. Competition is, of course, very strong, but we think we have the right tools to be able to deal with everything that's going on with our competition. And the news is, if I need to be more aggressive, then I can. We have the strength to do that. We have the breadth to that, and we'll be able to be more aggressive if we need to. So our guess is the following. We do not -- the levels of margins that we have today are stable and are sustainable for our entire period of growth that we are proposing.

Thank you, Richard. Our next question comes from Daniela from XP. She has the same name as I do.

My question goes back to one of the first questions about categories. Roberto, you commented that most of the growth comes from new categories or presence. And my question would be to understand if you have some of that growth coming from an inorganic way with a movement that would be a bit more transformational from the strategic point of view. So there are some competitors -- some of your competitors are buying other companies from other categories, and that helps them to accelerate their market share. So I wanted to understand how you see that acceleration for market share, if it's going to be organic versus inorganic, especially regarding 1P. And that would be my first question. The second would be, if you could update us on your program, which you launched in February for Casas Bahia. So how has that evolution of sellers gone? How are you seeing the clients accept this new program? In a more general way in the short term, how are you seeing this evolve?

Thank you, Daniela. Thank you for that question. Well, about eventual acquisitions that may potentialize 1P, we are looking at all of the options. I cannot give you more details right now because what we have has already been potentializing us. So unleashing our ecosystem just to improve the conversion will help us a lot. So everything we had presented in this event, our many strategies help to potentialize our business without considering new businesses. But of course, we are open to opportunities in the market. We are looking at several opportunities. There's nothing concrete I can tell you at this moment. But we're not going to do M&As just to do M&As. Everything that we said now, we are able to potentialize a lot. So we got [ Zapilongi ]. [ Zapilongi ] was very small. [ Zapilongi ] is already one of our largest logistical operators. We already have more than 300,000 deliverers already rendering services to other players outside of Via's ecosystem. We acquired 100% of the banQi last year, and we already saw how much it grew and how much it accelerated and where we're going with banQi. We just bought [ Hedge Seller ], and we're going to potentialize [ Hedge Seller ] a lot. And so we like doing acquisitions when they're going to help us unleash our ecosystem and help us potentialize it. So we're very selective in the entire M&A process that we would carry out. I forgot the second question. Daniela, can you ask again?

Well, she asked -- you talked about the acceleration of sellers from the marketplace. I think she wants to know how we see the evolution of GMV from now into the future.

Well, we accelerated and now in the month of March, we had 10,000 sellers joining us. It's not a plug-and-play that it will happen overnight. There's a whole process, a whole learning curve for sellers, but we can already see this recurrence starting to scale up. So we already see excellent signs and in this scale-up at this rhythm of 10,000 new sellers per month. At the rhythm which the sellers are accelerating to join our ecosystem as fast as possible, we have no doubt that in one more quarter probably, we'll be already breaking in and penetrating the marketplace of our business. So most of our growth, the relevant part of our growth that we will have in our online business will come from the marketplace and from the categories and the infinite assortment that we will add there. So Helisson has a maxim or slogan that say the more assortment we have, the more sales we have. So we were able to unleash the company, and we are already seeing results from all of that. And I think in one more quarter, we'll be able to demonstrate to the market exactly what the marketplace of Via will look like, which is already strong. We already see a lot of growth. In the first quarter, the first quarter is very similar to what we saw in the previous quarters, but we still have a lot of things to get done here. Yes, just to complement, Helisson showed a very interesting slide, which is to generate value, and there were 10 items through marketplace, Via ads, other different clubs, a series of things that are going to come in to immediately help generate more revenue. I'm going to call Helisson. I think he should comment on that. Please, Helisson.

Hi, everyone. Thank you, Roberto. Well, Dani reminded you all well. We have a very aggressive agenda for the evolution of our marketplace more than 11 units that we brought here to you. But we'd like to reinforce that for transformational changes that will happen this year is to increase the penetration of [ Ageas ]. That's our entire logistical structure, through sellers, giving it more capacity and competitiveness for the sellers in our environment and a better experience for clients. And another transformational change would be to offer credit or the payment books in Casas Bahia to the seller's clients. I think that's going to be huge this year. Thank you.

Also to reinforce what we said, I think everyone's here together. If you want to ask someone a question directly to whoever made the presentation, they're all with us, and they'll come to the stage if you want to talk to them directly.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Joseph Giordano, Joe from JPMorgan. Please go ahead, Joe.

It was a great event. Actually, we have -- I have 2 questions. First, I'm going to ask about fintech. I want to understand how your thought pattern is regarding the rates -- the market rates for loans and funding. So the clients that we have today that are underbanked, I wanted to understand how you're able to get to those clients within your future profitability plan? And the second question is a little bit about subsidies or grants to accelerate the growth of market -- the marketplace that you're mentioning. So Marcelo also mentioned that you would, at some moment, work with a takeaway close to zero. So there are international competitors working with very low rates. There is a high frequency of this with restaurants. Maybe you would even bring in food. So I just wanted to understand what your thoughts are about that?

I'm going to pass the floor to Calabro.

So thank you. Good afternoon. I'm going to answer you in a different way. First, I'm going to show you how strategic seller is for a business. So a seller unleashes value on 3 different verticals within Via marketplace. They're capturing new sellers through banQi and the journey of our entity -- private entity account and in the journey of our clients within in physical stores and in relation to the MDR that you mentioned. Our strategy is to reach final clients with a credit offer -- with an offer of credit. So we're also concerned, and we know that the market is very competitive. We are less concerned with the NDR rates than with the direct offer to final clients that we will be able to supply. So let's say, one seller that's a merchant that's in the countryside of Brazil, he uses a physical store. Through his little machine, he can offer a payment book credit or a personal loan to his final client. So that is where we see value. And that is how we understand that sellers will be unleashing value via through the payment book or through banQi or the other verticals that I mentioned. Thank you. [Audio Gap] within the opportunities to capture new clients [Audio Gap] more to the marketplace with investments in streaming, logistics, et cetera. And we think that -- we wonder what was the main competitive difference in the next few years to be able to reach 20% of market share that you mentioned you would like to reach by 2025? Maybe you could comment on what you believe that you have that sets you apart at Via Varejo. I would appreciate it.

Thank you, Victor. I think we demonstrated some of what sets us apart here today. No one has the level of credit that we have. So when Helisson showed us that graph that we were trying to demonstrate that there are things we have that no one else has. Everyone has operations with credit cards. We also have that in both models. But we have our own payment book, a payment book that knows those consumers really well, that's a winning payment book and that exists for decades. We know how to operate credit in Brazil and making money at the same time. So that's a huge challenge in Brazil. It's not anyone that can do that. Anyone who tries to build a credit platform as we do, maybe they'll even be able to do it, but they're going to spend a lot with default. And it's not a little bit of money. It's a lot of money. So we already have that payment book, and that's what sets us apart. In terms of logistics, the market is penetrated by 8%. There are other indicators that say 10% [Audio Gap] so we're talking about the large centers. We're talking about the capital of some [Audio Gap] several others that we mentioned throughout the call. But if I were to point out the -- what sets us apart, the credit that we have and the logistical mesh that we have, no one can reach the same size, the omnichannel presence that we have, all of that can be at the service of the sellers. And the sellers will be able to sell and they'll also be able to sell in physical stores. So in September, we're going to start the pilot project for that. So these strengths set us apart from what the market has today. And it takes us on to a path, which for now, we see that it belongs to us more than the others.

Excellent. Next question, we have Guilherme Assis from Safra. Gui, go ahead.

I wanted to explore a few topics that were already well explored but one is very specific. Maybe this question is for you, Roberto, because you really scaled up these aspects. So you projected the growth based on the positions of the banks without calculating the GMV from -- [ BRL 25 million ] of BRL 150 million, from which 2/3 come from online, 1/3 comes from physical stores. So when we decompose that, we see there is a huge amount of growth per channel. I wanted to understand, within the online channel, can you give us an idea of how much would come from the marketplace, and how much would come from the [ be ]? That would be the first question. And then if you would allow me, I'll ask the second one already.

Go ahead. Please, go ahead.

The second one, I think it's connected to the growth of the client base. I think it's very clear the entire history of Casas Bahia, the background, especially as a -- with the credit or the payment book with clients today. You said in your client base in your CRM, I believe 95 million clients that are registered, people who already had some kind of contact or relationship with you. I know that the active base is smaller. But I wanted to know, for example, if we are talking about access and have more people coming in to the market, how are you going to work with the CRM to digitalize the clients that you have in your database but then today are not online clients or not omnichannel clients? I wanted to know if you already have a plan for that, and what percentage of that base do you believe you'll be able to capture into the online channel?

Good afternoon, Guilherme. Thank you for that question. Just to reinforce, we didn't add any guess. So we just projected what we believe could be the future of Via. I'm going to start with the second question. We understand that everything we're doing -- while we started doing the online payment book, online payment book was strongly connected to young people. So the youth connected to it. Those who had more access to the payment book were not the father -- the -- first of all, they were the parents and the grandparents. But then after we put it online, we had a huge amount of new consumers that were young people, joining and celebrating the fact that they could access credit with us and access new products through that. We just ended up turning the point around. So Ponto is going to be revolutionary. It's going to connect to the youth. It's going to connect to other classes. It's going to bring together the A to D classes. It's probably even a bit going to be a bit sarcastic, but it's going to add a lot of everything that exists today on social media. From there, we'll get a lot of new clients. And we have an excellent business here, more than 20,000 sellers. And what our main challenge was to transform those 20,000 sellers into online sellers. And we're able to do that during the pandemic. We saw how successful it was. And the online seller is bringing in a lot of new clients into the online journey. So we have the tools here. We have the brands and we have the attributes that we believe to be fantastic to bring in those clients. It doesn't mean that the client will be an only-online client. If it's a physical store client or if it's from an online seller, the client is a client. It doesn't matter where they come from. We're going to provide for those clients where, when and however they want. That's what we have as our strong point. And we have a huge level of capacity to insert new clients from the countryside of Brazil who are not online yet. And we've seen that happen. We continue to see it happen through our online sellers about the size that the 3P can represent. We don't have a final number because we're going to ramp it up as much as we can, the 1P and the 3P. Our goal is to reach consumers, but we estimate that higher than 30%, we think it would be possible, 30% to 35% up. We believe it would be possible for the marketplace to represent within our ecosystem. I don't know if I answered all the questions or if something -- if I forgot something.

Yes, you answered well. His question is about the 1/3 that was online, how much we thought would be the marketplace. So you said that the client is omnichannel clients. I think you answered quite completely. Let's go on to the next question from João from Citibank. And he's also going to ask us through the video.

I have 2 questions. The first one, you showed a slide of how you're going to unleash value. And there are some specific aspects such as working capital for sellers. I wanted to understand from you if today, from those leverages that you're going to add, do you have all of that in-house already or are there some services that you're going to accelerate through M&As? And the next point -- the second point, I think it would be interesting to talk about the rebranding process that you're going through right now. Maybe if it's -- is it the right time? Or when you joined the company, what changed? And what is the main message behind this rebranding process?

Thank you, João, for that question. Good afternoon to you. Well, regarding M&As, everything that can help to accelerate our growth process, we are going to pay attention to that. So as we said, we're going to add a price of BRL 200 million. We have a Via Next, so it's a program for acceleration and to bring together our ecosystem with the ecosystem of the other entrepreneurs and start-ups in Brazil. So we believe that we have a lot of opportunities. If we look at [ Zapilongi ], it was a start-up for logistics. We bought it in 3 months. It was integrated in the fourth and fifth month. It was the largest logistical company at Via. We have our own ecosystem, and we have the capacity to accelerate that very strongly. Whoever connects with us is accelerated strongly. And whoever we connect also helps us accelerate. So yes, we are paying attention to M&A. What we just did now with the seller network was exactly that. We saw the opportunity to take a leap of growth in terms of new opportunities and services that we would be able to add. And that's why we acquired the seller network. What we will not do, João, is an infinity of M&A. It's just to say that we're growing or that we're doing M&As. That's not the path we're going to follow. Our M&As will be strategic. That makes sense to the ecosystem, and that will accelerate our thirst to make our consumers' dreams come true. About the brand, we had already launched the Casas Bahia change of brand. So we changed the mascot, the Bahianinho was exchanged for CB, so a more outgoing or easy-going character that can communicate with the youth much better, and we made the brand younger -- the Casas Bahia brand younger. As we said, the next phase would be Pontofrio. We just migrated Pontofrio to Ponto. It's being highly successful. We're getting excellent feedbacks, the best possible from our consumers. Our team is really excited about it. We rewrote the communication strategy on our online channels and in stores, if I'm not wrong. 170 stores changed in 1 day. That's almost like opening a new network of 170 stores on the same day. So we're able to do this. The other stores are going to be joining in the next 10 days. All of them have made the change as well. So that was part of our rebranding process. And Via Varejo, we had the real conviction that it wasn't going to be the brand that would take us to the next level alone, but it wasn't the moment to change before this event because we didn't have this chance to make this transformation as we had. But now we made the important transformation and the change, we made and enforced the transformation in Via's ecosystem. So we started going after -- what did we start going after? Retail was limiting for us. We're not only retailers but we are much more than only retailers now. So retail started to limit our growth. And that's why Via can help us imagine new ways. And this change was fundamental for us, and it's very connected to the company that has been born now. And it's connected to where we want to go. There are no other limitations. And we're going to look at the consumers in all of the aspects that they want to be related to with us. And in any places where we can generate value to consumers, we're going to be there. And that's our goal with Via. And that's the important aspect of the turnaround that we wanted to comment on. I think that it's a great opportunity for us to prove that we've had -- we've been coherent, we've been consistent in our discourse. For more than 1.5 years ago, we assumed this company on the first week, we already said that we would have 3 parallel fronts. The first would be going back to retail. The second would be to doing retail with excellence. And the third, to go beyond retail. So we're making that happen. Yes. And it's been very strategic for us in the space that we are occupying. So the association with the district, that's what we're doing. We're, in fact, putting our foot into where we can help be accelerated and the others that can accelerate us. So there are many different start-ups in Brazil. So probably, yes, we're looking at the large M&As but that's going to help us take those steps, those large steps into the future.

Our next question is also on video from [ Andre ] from Leblon Equities.

I would like to get to know a little more about what you're thinking in regards to the marketplace growth and the increase in the number of sellers with the amount of sales per seller and how you could imagine the road map and the increase of the amount of sellers.

Thanks, [ Andre ]. And I just want to maybe add on to the previous answer before. Beyond everything I've mentioned, Via Varejo has a long history that we don't necessarily want to carry along a past. And now we're setting a barrier, and we're representing new, what's new, new ways. We don't want to take so much of this past baggage or luggage with us. So about the marketplace, [ Andre ], we have accelerated this. What's the amount of sales we want to reach? We don't have that number set. We're going to have as many sellers as we'd like to relate to, and those that we think also have the necessary quality to relate to our customers. We've seen Ilca represent the NPS numbers ramping up as never before. So the brands like Ponto are already occupying the maximum level at the head coming in key steel, and our other brands are also moving ahead in this sense. So we are being very selective. And we definitely will rupture the relationship with some sellers that don't have the necessary quality. So it's difficult to imagine how productivity will happen, right, per seller because as we consider the platform as an unlimited platform, you can see that even a small seller that maybe sells like 10 items, great. If he helps to fulfill the dream of 10 of our customers, that's great. We're not going to look so much at productivity. We're going to look at total GMV. And we're also going to look at the amount of the assortment that really brings customers to this recurrence that's a lot more speedily with us. So we have banQi to help with recurrence. We have the payment book. We have 1P to help, and now we're bringing in the infinite shelf to be able to increase recurrence even more. And at the end of the day, what we're searching for is recurring and GMV. And this is what we're going to be winning as we can really fulfill the other dreams of our consumers.

Well, thank you, Roberto. And the next question, I'm going to read it from the cell phone. We have 3 from analysts that are not available in Brazil. So the next question is from Irma Sgarz from Goldman Sachs. And she's asking us about fulfillment. If we believe that it will be necessary to provide incentives to the sellers so that they have fulfillment with us. Or if we think it's like an automatic demand available for these kind of customers that are partners in the marketplace? And why is she asking this? Well, she thinks there's some diverging factors in the market about the need to provide or not provide fulfillment.

Well, thank you there for that question. Excellent. I think this is an important point. We're not going to provide any subsidies to have sellers performing fulfillment with us. Our goal here is not -- the more fulfillment, the more -- the better life is going to be. No, that's not what we're looking at. What we're looking at is who can perform logistics all over Brazil is basically us. We're the ones that can do this. As e-commerce generates greater penetration, the logistics will be even more challenging, and it's going to be difficult to build this kind of logistics we have here. What are we going to offer sellers? Well, from the third quarter on, we'll have our full technological fulfillment level, including the new distribution center in [ Extrema ], that's going to be very much dedicated to seller fulfillment. And what we're going to do is sellers don't want to have fulfillment with a bunch of people because that involves working capital. That means it has to have inventories in many different distribution centers. They don't want this. What we're going to give them is the opportunity to be their logistical hub, regardless of the marketplace they're going to be selling on. So we're going to provide the opportunity for sellers to use our logistical structures. Now whatever they sell with us on our marketplace and also whatever they sell in any other marketplace, we provide their problems -- solutions to their problems. And we will also help competition, right, in some way. So logistics is a business for us. We don't see this as a problem. We're going to be providing logistics to sellers, regardless of the platform they sell on. So I'm going to call Fernando Gasparini to help us with this answer.

So when we think about fulfillment, I think the market is pretty strong with us. Our strong point of the heavy-duty item is very scarce. So since we are naturally heavy in our structure, we have distribution centers and networks that are focused on heavy items. So our weight per kilo is double the market, so -- or specialized in heavy items, and this allows us to perform fulfillment in a very competitive way. So there's maybe a big change in the marketplace. It's probably not what's going to be sold in the marketplace in a bit. The marketplace offer is limited by the level of service that we have in the market. We are being disruptive by adding a new level of service and a new service in the market. We can perform this logistics for heavy goods, right? For example, other players that work with furniture have a difficulty with operating different platforms because they don't have the logistics, so we're specializing in this need in this business. And also for light items, and here, marketplace is very important because it helps to optimize our logistics. And we already have a very strong structure. And this is a differential and the one I'll pass.

So our next question is also going to come through a message from an analyst, Andrew Ruben from Morgan Stanley. And also for Helisson. [Audio Gap] So the second part of the question about generating value and the items with advertising from the university, the marketplace. So he wants to know when we're going to see this in Via's results so that they can incorporate this in their forecast. So the second point is when you were talking about technology, we performed the acquire hire from I9XP and about if maybe we have a difficulty in hiring, attracting and retaining talent in technology, because it's an area that's really heated right now.

Yes. Thank you, Richard. About the first question, we have, as I mentioned, this year is the year of marketplace on Via. So we have been foreseeing a very aggressive growth and we have trends of news. The last wave was really unleashing the onboarding process. So despite the fact that we have 3 minutes for the onboarding of the seller, we can improve this even more. We're going to keep working with this. We are estimating that we'll have between 70,000 and 90,000 sellers. And onboarding is unleashing the volume of sellers as well as the volume of SKUs, prepare this to have a more aggressive GMV. And so I think when we think about transformational changes this year for the marketplace, we're going to be advancing with logistics with the pro marketplace in Via's program as Roberto and Gasparini have mentioned. And also with the payment book because it reaches a underserved demand and also an important effect that we could consider. We have the capacity to offer content for 3P all over Brazil through our over 20,000 sales reps as well as the other 9 or 10 other topics that I talked about when I discussed the generate value topic. And so what I can ensure is that we are going to be delivering this, this year. Some will be generating volume of growth in GMP this year still. And probably last year, this will -- next year, this will already generate effect. And when we think about technology, one more challenge is to increase the employees working with technology, which is a very positive agenda. What I can ensure also is that we're very attractive to the market when we think about the technology environment because it's a huge challenge to make Via a leader in this omnichannel market and this attracts a lot of talent. So we've been able to work with new hires at a very aggressive rhythm with quality. We integrated I9XP with 150 employees that work with e-commerce at once with our M&A road map, searching for new opportunities. Thank you very much.

Well, just to add on to this, our ad platform is going to be launched next month. So why was it not so relevant before? Because we didn't really have a lot of sellers on our platform. But now as we increase the number of sellers, they're going to have a bunch of service with ad possibilities in our platform that's going to be launched in May. And this will represent an improvement in the level of services, increasing revenue and a lot more sales that generate more sales that generate more results at the end of the day.

Thank you, Roberto, and I will read one more question now coming from Ravi. He's from HSBC. He's also based in New York. And the first part of the question is how much comes from Click & Collect. Representing 25% and 30% of the 1P sales, so that's my answer already. And then there's another question also about our strategy for logistics and how we are estimating to perform that cross-docking or drop shipping. I don't know if you want to answer this.

I'll start here, but then I think Gasparini can also add on. I think the good news here is that 50% of our deliveries are already going through our stores. So having stores that can perform logistics all over Brazil is fundamental. Having a dock stop is extremely complex, and it's very expensive. We already have this because our stores are big enough also to be many logistical hubs. So this is making a giant difference in our logistical process. And now we're also going to be placing this at the service of the marketplace. So we're going to test this, right?

We don't have this limit currently. I don't think anyone in the market has the available area that we have in the stores and distribution centers. So we have a strong strategy, right, to perform the pickup and drop-off in store, starting in the second semester. We came from zero in November with Envvias, and now we are at the level that you've seen with like 50% of the sellers already signed up using our platforms. And with fulfillment, we're also going to be expanding these services more to sellers and all of this drop shipping and cross-docking. We don't have like a precise assessment of where we're going to reach, but this number is very big, so that we can have the necessary availability to do this with all the automation we have in our areas in line with what Roberto mentioned. So we have a long pathway to follow.

Thank you, Gaspar. And now we will move on to 2 questions from the chat that I believe will be projected here on the screen for Padilha. The first question is, is the company planning to have another round of follow-ons or not to strengthen cash position for M&A?

Well, we think that our capital structure currently is sufficient to consider this growth. But of course, if there are any very relevant opportunities for M&A, we may need to access the capital market. But what we've seen and have been doing with our operation is enough. Now it's important to mention that a lot of analysts, for example, don't consider that we have a very big asset in the company for fiscal credit. And we have been able to successfully, in the fourth quarter and the first quarter, monetize most of these credits. We have about [ BRL 4 billion to BRL 5 billion ] in our balance. And this will be like throughout the next 3 to 5 years will become cash. So this is an additional reinforcement that can be used for any investment needs.

Thank you, Padilha. And now finally, for the questions-and-answer session, we're going to have our last question from the chat. That will also be directed to you, Padilha, about the [ Investidor ] digital channel. The digital channel is very strong. But we still have about over 1,000 stores. So how is the company thinking about equating this cost with expenses in the stores in the future?

Can I answer this one? Well, it's our pleasure, right? We do understand loss as expenses. It's the center for relationship with customers, and it's also our logistical center. So it performs all the last-mile work. 50% of our deliveries are already going through the stores. And we're going to be adding soon the sellers to the stores that are already working through the vendors that are online. So soon, we're going to have inventories also and from the sellers as well. So we did optimize stores, which started off in the fourth quarter last year with about 100 stores that we understood we could maybe close down. But we're very active with opening new stores. This year, we're going to launch 120 stores that are really focused in the North and Northeast regions. And we don't look at this as a cost. We see this as a big opportunity. When we started the store on Pará, the good news is that normally, you pay -- you start a store and you spend millions to have advertisements at the start. When we placed that Casas Bahia story with Pará, consumers would get into the store asking us, why did you guys take so long to get here? So our brands are already all over Brazil. And even without even being physically present, people already knew who we were in the market. So when we actually launched the physical store in Pará, we saw exponential growth because our logistics became a lot easier with the store plays there. So now we don't look at the stores as a cost. Of course, we are always trying to optimize our network of stores, and we measure performance daily. And if the store starts a descending curve that represents a potential cost of nonprofitability, there is a list of remedies that we can apply to try to rescue profitability. And if nothing works out, we'll just close it down. We're not afraid to do this. We've already closed about 100 stores. But these stores don't represent cost. Actually, this is what we consider an extremely cheap cost of acquisition for customers. The cheapest CAC is when consumers visit a physical store. And these consumers are not only physical anymore. These consumers can start in the physical store, but they are omnichannel when they get into the store. So with the vendors that are online, these consumers are in all of our platforms. Gasparini?

Yes. Just to maybe add on and provide a little more tangibility on the role of the store is logistical context when you consider the delivery costs from one store to the final consumer, it's 1/3 that same product leaving from a distribution center. So the role of a store, reducing time for delivery is also reducing all of the logistical costs in the ecosystem. We're not looking at the stores with just traditional metrics that retailers look at. The store became a lot more than this. It's responsible for gigantic savings in logistics, relevant lifetime value of the consumer. So we changed our mindset. We're totally customer-centric. So the way we measure a store also change. And just to add on, Roberto, we believe that stores are very important. So when we look at this perspective from Via, we are foreseeing the growth and expansion of the physical stores to areas where we currently don't have stores to be able to maximize all of these gains that we have with capturing customers, LTV, logistical penetration. So for us, this future vision is also going through the physical store. And let's remember the payment booklet, right? When we think about the future of the payment booklet, the half of the payment booklets are coming through physical stores. So there's no channel. Customers are already multichannel, and they will be multichannel more and more. They're going to buy however, when and wherever they want to. Sometimes, they're going to want to go to the physical stores. Sometimes, they want to use the platform. Sometimes, they want to do the online WhatsApp sale. So we have to work with them anywhere they want to work.

Thank you, Roberto. Thank you, Padilha. We will end our Q&A session at this moment. And I want to thank you all for your questions that were submitted, this entire team at Via that contributed to organize this event with a lot of content. And I really want to thank all of the production team. We are here at a virtual event as well as the IR team at Via. And we're available, of course, to perform any additional clarifications. We know that there were some issues with the connection at a certain moment. But the presentation will be available at the Via IR website. And also -- well, thank you all, and we're all invited to imagine new ways along with us. Have a great afternoon. Bye. Thanks. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]