Shopo is a zero commission, open marketplace which brings an interesting combination of chat and commerce to the consumer on their smartphones. It enables small sellers to create their online identity at the click of a button with its single step easy listing. Currently less than 0.1% of the SMBs in India have online presence, and Shopo is trying to address this opportunity by creating a platform which is very easy and convenient for the shop owners to set up their shop. Shopo was launched by India’s largest online marketplace - Snapdeal in July 2015. Since its launch, Shopo is offering close to 5 million products in total.
Since its launch, over 1.8 lakh shops have been listed on Shopo. Addressing unique consumption needs, Shopo targets the micro, small and individual sellers – with limited inventory or business outreach.
Shopo has used a mobile-based social commerce interface to provide a digital identity for these sellers, while using chat as a medium of information exchange.
Sujata Sangwan Interacts With Sandeep Komaravelly, SVP-Shopo And Spoke To HimGenesisCurrently less than 1% of the SMBs in India have online presence, and Shopo is trying to address this opportunity by creating a platform which is very easy and convenient for the shop owners to set up their shop, online. That’s the genesis of Shopo, and the platform now enables any seller to create a shop online within a minute.
Unique Key FeaturesShopo is a zero commission open marketplace that is driving commerce for Small and individual sellers across the country.
From a Seller’s standpoint – it’s the most convenient platform to set up an online shop. It takes less than a minute for anyone to upload and start selling. The platform offers supreme customisation to the sellers around catalogue, pricing, payments, logistics, shop set up, and how to market their products.
From a Buyer’s standpoint – it’s a platform driven by social engagement not only between buyers but also between buyers and sellers. Users can follow other users or shops and there is regular interaction through chat and buy.
From a platform standpoint – It has one of the most interactive Chat platforms which enables sellers pretty much run their shop through chat – interacting with the customers, sharing additional information, closure of price and the transaction and future customisations. All of it is driven by chat which is at the core of the platform.
Traction DetailsShopo has over 1.8 lakh sellers in less than 10 months since launch. The startup has grown itself organically to 5 million listings and over 1 million app downloads.
Funding & MonetizationShopo is currently funded by Snapdeal. It is looking at adding value added services and ad sales as future avenues for monetization.
Marketing Plans We are seeing great adoption for Shopo amongst buyers and sellers, and we have a lot of features in the pipeline which will help us grow the platform organically.
Challenges Faced One of the things that has helped us from an adoption standpoint, is the rapid iteration that we’ve been able to do with the product and the platform. While it was challenging, given our mission to make this the destination for small and individual sellers across the country, we were constantly incorporating feedback and making changes to ensure that all the things that a potential seller is looking for, are available while retaining the extreme simplicity and ease of usage.
Market Size & OpportunityCurrently less than 1% of the SMBs in India have online presence, and Shopo is trying to address this opportunity by creating a platform which is very easy and convenient for the shop owners to set up their shop. Shopo has specially been designed for the unique needs of micro and individual sellers by allowing ease of business through the convenience of mobile commerce. Shopo offers a tremendous potential for increasing the micro SMB's share of India's eCommerce pie; expected to be a $75 billion industry by 2020.
