Converting passion for shopping into online marketplace

When people share a common passion for something, nothing can stop them from coming together and starting up. And the same happened with Deepti Priya and Monjori Ghosh. Deepti holds a masters degree in psychology and started her career with National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development (NIPCCD), while Monjori, who is an MBA in human resource management, quit her job as an HR analyst at Accenture to raise her child.

Deepti and Monjori shared a common passion towards art and shopping, and to expand upon it they started Xarato, earlier this year with the intention of creating a marketplace for small business and individual sellers. Deepti and Monjori also felt the need for a more vibrant and rich shopping experience, which they found somewhat lacking in the industrial interfaces and layouts of the bigger players. Instead, they wished to create a platform where sellers and buyers are not merely IDs and a bunch of statistics, but have personalities and build lasting relationships. They believe that the best software in the world can’t tell one what they will love. But their friends can. Therefore, the experience that Xarato intends to provide is that of social shopping.

Xarato operates in relatively niche area, of apparel, jewellery and home décor. At present the target market is largely women in Indian tier 1, 2 and 3 cities. However, there is also a demand for the products from countries such as the US, UK, UAE and Malaysia.

Xarato.com started with about 30 sellers and 1,500 products. Since then, they have grown to host about 110 sellers and 8,000 products, and are receiving over 1,000 visitors and about 4,000 page views every day and the traffic is growing at a steady pace.

Currently, they are working on a transaction fee model. Sellers are charged a fee (among the lowest in the industry) when their item sells on the platform. Another revenue stream is fees charged to sellers for placement of in-house ads and banners on the home page.

Currently they have a 5-member team. Two of the other team members have over 20 years of IT experience and hold MBA degrees and are mainly responsible for marketing and operations.

They are completely bootstrapped and looking forward to expand the team.

We wish them a great journey ahead.

Click here to visit Xarato.