Heena
Ansari brims with joy as she talks about her new business. The 29-year-old
housewife, who lives in the bustling Jamia Nagar area of Old Delhi, set up a
shop for the products she handcrafts 10 months ago.
“Within
just five days of starting my shop, I received an order for 50 handcrafted jute
bags,” she recalls. Ansari, who also helps her husband run his small-time garment business and is raising two kids, is
now doing business like a pro.
Her shop,
named TripleSss, sells crochet and wool-made handcrafted products like
jewellery, bags and accessories for women. TripleSss runs on online platform
Shopo, earning Ansari profits of ₹500-1,000 a day.
Shopo, the app-only mobile C2C marketplace majority owned by
Snapdeal, features over 1.5 lakh sellers like TripleSss, from around 800
cities.
Recent re-launch
Snapdeal
has invested $100 million in the zero
commission platform, which it acquired in 2013 and re-launched in July
last year.
Unlike other
e-commerce marketplaces, sellers on Shopo do
not have to pay the platform any commission.
“When
we started out we didn’t want any friction points that are present in existing
online marketplaces,” says Sandeep Komaravelly, Senior Vice-President of Shopo.
“Sometimes,
the commission acts as a hindrance, thus, we decided to be a zero
commission marketplace so there are no complexities and all those who want to
set up their shop can do so in no time.
We help sellers set up shop and offer them lot of
customisation.”
So
how does Shopo make money?
“Monetisation
will happen primarily through ad sales, which we will introduce over a period
of time,” says Komaravelly.
“We
believe if we could generate enough traction on the platform — accumulate a lot
of sellers, who in turn will get the buyers — it will bring opportunities for
us to monetise through ads.”
Value additions
“We
will also provide value-added services to our sellers which will be payable and
that can also be a large source of monetisation.”
Also,
some sellers do not have the required logistics and payments infrastructure.
“For those sellers we will provide integration of
Freecharge wallet, which will help them in processing online payments and
transactions,” adds Komaravelly.
While
Shopo will provide such assistance, the negotiation, discussions and ownership
will completely lie with the sellers.
“That's
the fundamental difference between us and other marketplaces like Snapdeal,” he
points out.
Unlike
Snapdeal, there is no catalogue, no paperwork required to set up shop on Shopo.
The small-time sellers who populate the platform can define
their own shop, customise and merchandise it. They can chat with potential
buyers and sell their ware.
The
app currently has a catalogue of more than 4 million products. According to
Komaravelly, the product categories are mostly impulse-driven, non-branded or
unique — things that you may otherwise find hard to get online.
(This article was published
on May 16, 2016)
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