India’s ecommerce market is projected to touch $33 Bn mark this 12 months. With an Internet user base of 462 Mn, India has the second largest online user populace within the international, 2d only to China. With deep-pocketed buyers backing ecommerce sector at huge, there is no dearth of options for the Indian users. But as they are saying, extra the alternatives, greater the confusion and thus the growing percentage of closing-minute cart abandonment.
Looking at this enormous opportunity that ecommerce gives, Manas Usharia and Shantanu Gaur took the plunge to launch a platform which could ease the online buyers’ dilemma of online product credibility. That’s how the tale of ShoppingPost started out.
Being in competition with already set up startups together with Voonik, Wooplr, Klip, LimeRoad and greater, and having been in operations for over two years, the Indore-based totally social trade startup ShoppingPost has now grow to be a hub for shopaholics.
As claimed, the social commerce startup has witnessed about 150K installs with approximately ninety,000 posts. And the next formidable goal is to host 1,000,000 customers via the stop of 2018 and over 10 Mn users through 2019 quit.
Rise Of The Online Users
Manas’ entrepreneurial adventure started out way lower back in 2013 while he co-founded Codebin with a loan of $549.50 (INR 35,000) from his father. The startup handled offerings in the era domain. Later he pivoted the enterprise and rebranded it to ShoppingPost and turned into joined by means of Shantanu.
According to a report with the aid of Google and AT Kearney, by way of 2020, India could have a hundred seventy five Mn online buyers. With this shift within the purchasing behaviour comes troubles like trust, the credibility of the product, carrier and true comments. How do clients agree with the web sites or the products?
So, the simple mantra in the back of the reason of ShoppingPost is ‘Shop and Post’.
As Shantanu states, “We created ShoppingPost to attach actual users of various merchandise to every other, proportion their purchases and create the following splendid social community with a purpose.”
The crew drafted the primary mockup one year earlier than sooner or later launching the basic version of the app. “We knew that there would be challenges and that they first had to be solved on pen and paper,” Manas said.
Their research turned into based totally on knowledge the customer, problems they face whilst shopping on-line. The social commerce startup desired the person to share his/her buy records with others. As the platform comes with “Social” component, customers have the option to engage with each different, proportion opinions about unique products and so forth.
ShoppingPost: Breaking The Mountain Of Challenges
Resonating with most startup memories, Manas and Shantanu had additionally faced the conundrum of funding. And first of all, the duo had used their savings. And afterward, they took a mortgage to provide the social trade startup a run time of six months and began assembly angel investors.
And then the group went directly to receive angel investment to the music of $140K (INR 90 Lakhs) from Suresh Kumili, a Hyderabad-based totally angel.
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However, startup and challenges are like two facets of the equal coin; one cannot exist with out the other. And ShoppingPost founders did have their proportion.
Apart from lack of funding avenues, just like another Tier II metropolis startup, ShoppingPost confronted a big undertaking in locating the right crew and then training them to use the generation stake. Then came the problem of convincing the most important ecommerce web sites to feature a ‘percentage on ShoppingPost button’ on their websites.
Eventually, ShoppingPost has gained mileage in its adventure. They have focussed on parameters for the traction degree they have got achieved. One, on hiring the proper expertise and two, on diversifying the product providing of the startup. So, it set out as an informative platform to price products and validate the credentials but within the long time, it has come to paintings with numerous ecommerce web sites and clients to feature fee to on line shopping.
So what kind of opposition does the team of ShoppingPost foresee?
Shantanu quips, “We are a social trade in horizontal area and we realize of no person in India as a direct competition. Roposo is in style vertical. Pinterest and Instagram do not have purchasing at their center. But, sure, if social media spaces which include Instagram have been users can immediately percentage their buying experience, we are able to have opposition.”
ShoppingPost: Current Traction And Plans Ahead
As in step with Shantanu, ShoppingPost on a mean adds a brand new consumer and a brand new put up every minute. He found out that the social commerce startup has its person base unfold over towns like Hyderabad, Kolkata, Jaipur, Patna, Mumbai, Lucknow, Bengaluru, New Delhi, Pune, and Indore.
The startup plans to test its sales channel with focused ads as soon as it reaches 1 Mn customers in India. “We have real information of the customers that may assist businesses in addition to clients to get the exceptional suit possible earlier than purchasing,” Shantanu said.
As some distance as investment is involved, ShoppingPost is making plans to raise close to $1 Mn investment in a following few months. The startup, similarly, goals to release a Progressive Web App and to add numerous new channels or shops thru API integration to enable customers to publish the whole lot they buy on line.
Then there are plans to apply synthetic intelligence for product discovery and seek, which maximises the chances of the user getting what she or he desires.
Then, there also are plans to go into into the offline area with organised retail stores like Shoppers Stop, Lifestyle, Future Group to allow buyers to proportion their offline stories with each person at the touch listing.
Opportunities Galore
The on-line shopping space in India is heating up. Marketing value is huge and the ability to clear up every single problem through the social network is the important thing to optimising this marketplace. Consider these figures: in line with Statista, over 2.14 Bn human beings worldwide are predicted to shop for items and services on line by 2021. The same source additionally revealed that India had witnessed $sixteen.7 Bn income in 2016.
These figures are enough to apprehend the market this is posed by way of on line looking for the future. It might not be lengthy earlier than extra ecommerce websites emerge and evaluators of their merchandise to locate their way to push through the competitive social media advertising area.
The biggest project in uniformly pursuing this discern lies in the exceptional patron behaviours throughout unique Tier cities. It might be a sheer willpower so as to conquer the search regardless of infrastructural troubles that the social trade startup is going through.
Manas says,
“Internet infrastructure is bad in Indore, we've misplaced time and money sitting within the office waiting for the internet to be reinstated after paying twice of what we would have paid in a Tier I city. We were quietly growing our product in a low-value way, far from the plush surroundings. We were able to shine as the move-to-startup for applicants who want to work in Indore.”
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Shantanu feels there are way more that may be carried out to undo the torpid infrastructure and underdeveloped startup environment in India, “The government wishes to do greater. Why can we want to method personal investors? Take an example of Israel and the way it incubates its startups. As a society also, mind-set towards failure desires to alternate.”
Editor’s Note
With the number of on-line consumers at the rise in India, even the manner human beings choose to save on-line have changed drastically, and therefore the digital advertising strategies of the net stores. Leaving behind ad pop-united statesand e-mail advertising and marketing, the virtual shopper is now embracing social networks for knowing the current traits. A product assessment published by using the closed ones on a Facebook institution is a lot extra impactful than a random product advert, even if it’s based totally on person’s on line purchasing behaviour.
In the digital global, records is the brand new currency. The Internet operates by means of selling products or services and each consumer is both a supplier or a consumer, immediately or in a roundabout way. There are differences within the marketplace behaviour in India compared to the West. Despite the differences, a central authority this is running for a Digital India and a young populace of tech-savvy Indians will make all of the difference to on-line shopping.
Plus as Shantanu rightly mentioned, going in advance India may get a startup investment infrastructure similar to Israel, thereby building a wonderful as well as a mature ecosystem for the net consumers. Digital systems which includes ShoppingPost would possibly simply power this wave in India.
