Powering SMEs to have online channel with Amazon and Ebay integration: The journey of KartRocket
Before starting up, everything looks rosy; however, gradually, things become difficult, when you start shaping up an idea from ground zero. This is what exactly happened with KartRocket team, when Saahil Goel, Gautam Kapoor and Vishesh Khurana teamed up to launch an online store focused on handicraft; soon the trio had realized the pain of going online. “Initially we thought to go live within two months but it appeared impossible as the entire process from hiring a development team and UX/UI guy were very cumbersome affair and expensive too,” says Goel. The frustration altered their business idea and trio decided to solve the pain points for businesses while going online.
After freezing the idea, KartRocket team did some research on existing solutions, which were either expensive or not up to the mark. “We decided to build a solution that solves end-to-end problem sans heavy dent on finance front,” adds Goel. He worked in the US, and heads technology for ShipRocket came up with basic architecture for SAAS based DIY platform. “We hired two developers and started working out from 150 square feet office based out of Delhi,” reminisces Khurana.
Features and traction
With KartRocket you get access to over 50 web and mobile ready shop designs which are custom tailored and each of its templates is fully customizable. KartRocket comes with integration with all leading payment providers and businesses can accept payment options such as Cash on Delivery, including all plastic card based payments, PayPal and GharPay.
Recently, the company launched an order-processing and shipping service – ShipRocket. The one click service allows ecommerce ventures to have efficient delivery management service. ShipRocket enables etailers to dispatch a shipment, pick a courier company, assign an airway bill number, and print a shipping label, among other facilities.
The service prints packing slips in batches providing easy access to all customers and order information in one place. Order statuses change automatically from dispatch to shipped and from shipped to delivered, facilitating the tracking of order history for a particular order. The service has extended coverage with shipping enablement to over 12,000 pin codes including 6,000 COD pin codes.Importantly, KartRocket claims to be only platform that is pre-integrated with leading marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, Tradus and Flipkart. Currently, the startup services over 150 clients with 700 retailers trying out the platform. ShipRocket’s subscription-based service starts from Rs 1,500 to Rs 7,000. Launched in January this year, KartRocket raised under half million dollars from 5ideas, 500 Startups and angel Jatin Aneja.
Challenges and future plans
“The foremost challenge is to convince businesses to adopt online channel,” adds Khurana. Though, gradually the mindset seems to be changing, admits Khurana. “Apart from this, hiring quality developers and employees are big challenges; however, luckily, we have been able to build awesome team,” says Khurana.
KartRocket keeps experimenting and launches new features almost every week. Most of the new features come out from problems faced by its client. “Whenever our clients report about any hiccups faced by them, we take the feedback into consideration and as cue for developing new features,” adds Khurana. The company will also be launching multi-vendor management and multi-location pick-up in the coming months.
