Singapore-based Shopmatic starts operations in India to build online presence for individual entrepreneurs and small businesses
Founded in December 2014 by Anurag Avula, Yen Ti Lim, and Kris Chen, Shopmatic caters to a multitude of merchants and individual entrepreneurs who are selling their products and services with minimal online presence or none at all. The startup is based out of Singapore and has recently launched its operations in India with its offices in Gurgaon and Bengaluru.
Through its DIY platform, Shopmatic allows merchants to create a web presence with storefronts, list products on marketplaces or social media platforms and enables integration with payment gateways. The company widens the reach of products by listing the offline sellers on marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, Flipkart, Lazada, Qoo10, Rakuten and Zalora. The company has also tied up with e-commerce logistics firm Delhivery and global transportation major Aramex for delivery.
Shopmatic automatically tweaks product categories to meet the required specifications of the various marketplaces. One needs to only upload the product details once on the Shopmatic platform and all product images and information will be displayed correctly, regardless of which marketplace they are listed on.
Once you upload your product on Shopmatic, the information gets visible on various social platforms. And if anyone updates the product details, the changes will be automatically reflected across different social media sites.
Anurag Avula, CEO, Shopmatic says, “Shopmatic projects pricing as its USP with subscription beginning at $20 (Rs 1,300) a month, excluding payment gateway fees and logistics. One can choose from a range of payment options that are most relevant for your targeted customer segments and markets. These include cash-on-delivery, bank transfer, credit card and international payments.”
All the plans come with a one-month free trial period. Besides, the startup also offers Rs 1,000 shipping charges for anyone signing up for six-month and 12-month packages.
Leveraging data insights to boost sales
Shopmatic account includes built-in analytics that provide valuable insights to help grow one’s business. And with the help of dashboard, one can easily monitor the volume of the sales on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, and assess business growth.
Shopmatic's Business Intelligence tools identify customer or product segments that generate significant amount of revenue for business. With these data insights, one can tweak inventory and pricing strategy to further boost sales.The tool converts the data into charts and other visual formats allowing users to view and analyse the data on a customised dashboard to identify shopping trends and drive sales.
Data insights which ascertain seasonal demand and repeat customers enable users to offer special rewards to enhance customer experience, improve seasons having low sales and optimise inventory to meet periodic spikes in orders. Besides, all the websites built by Shopmatic are search engine optimised resulting to gain more visibility on search results.
Anurag says, “Shopmatic leverages the latest technology to provide a world-class experience to our customers. This gives the customer the ability to drag and drop product images, upload as many products as possible and provide a seamless integration with payment gateways and logistics.”
How Shopmatic is different from other marketplaces
According to Anurag, Shopmatic is different from other marketplaces as it gives sellers their own unique identity on the web and opensall avenues to them through which they can sell.
Within one week of the launch of India operations, Shopmatic has signed up with 100 customers and is poised to on-board one million customers by end of 2016.
Anurag says, “We believe that we have the opportunity to change the lives of individual entrepreneurs and small businesses by providing them a platform to grow their businesses and fulfill their aspirations. India has the unique advantage of addressing their needs on a larger scale. There are over 51 million small and medium businesses in the country, and among them there is a significant base of untapped individual entrepreneurs.”
Apart from Bengaluru and Gurgaon, the startup plans to launch its operation in 18 cities across India. By 2016, it will roll out to other regions like Middle East, Africa and Australia. In order to ensure customers avail offerings without any hassles, the website Shopmatic will be launched in multiple languages.