How Unicommerce has become the de facto SaaS solution for D2C brands and omnichannel ecommerce players

The coronavirus outbreak got more than 700 million people in India to actively use the Internet, consequently disrupting the ecommerce segment in the country.

Even before the lockdown, ecommerce was steadily gaining momentum, but the pandemic made it a necessity rather than being just an option.

Riding on this trend, brands and companies are now switching to omnichannel retail — selling on both online and offline channels — to get the maximum reach for their product. Many players have also opted for a direct-to-consumer (D2C) approach on the back of rising usage of social media and reselling platforms. 

However, experts believe that omnichannel and D2C commerce will be a difficult puzzle to solve for the Indian ecommerce companies as the segment is riddled with many tech complexities. This has led players like Unicommerce to become a preferred choice for players in the ecommerce segment.

Unicommerce is an ecommerce focused supply-chain SaaS technology platform, which acts as an aggregator for the seller to manage orders and inventory across multiple marketplaces, website platforms, as well as offline stores.

Started in 2012, Unicommerce has aced solutions that enables ecommerce-focussed supply chain technology and cloud solutions to help industry players of all sizes to manage their business efficiently. It has become a market leader, processing over 20 percent of India’s ecommerce volumes and works with leading online players.

Kapil Makhija, CEO, Unicommerce, says: “We understand the nuances and challenges faced by ecommerce companies and e-tailers in emerging e-commerce markets. It’s a brilliant time to be at the forefront with the best-in-class software solutions that enable companies to improve business efficiency and accelerate business growth. We have one of the most sought after D2C and omnichannel solutions in the industry, this has helped us gain confidence amongst e-tailers in India and become a de-facto choice of retailers planning to go D2C and omnichannel. We are now poised to achieve 100 percent growth with our enterprise clients in 2021, with a mission to increase our business 8X over the next five years.”

The platform offers 100+ pre-existing integrations of global and domestic marketplaces, logistics providers and ERPs, and is constantly working towards adding more integrations making it a perfect plug and play tool for e-tailers. The company is also one of the most sought-after SaaS solutions for multi-channel retail brands with its best-in-class and relatively faster product upgrades/evolution, which are designed to improve business efficiency.

Its omni-commerce platform enables central management of orders and inventory of online and offline stores. It also helps e-retailers in the routing of an online order to the nearest store, thus providing a uniform experience to customers and also leads to minimised logistics cost. The company helps brands to go frugal and handle their overall e-retail smoothly and provides various solutions like warehouse management platform to manage all the processes that run in the physical warehouse. 

Growth during the pandemic

Unicommerce witnessed business growth post lockdown with brands going digital. At the beginning of 2020, it had a little less than 50 companies with D2C operations, and today it has more than 150 clients who are selling directly to consumers and leveraging the platform to ensure that they are able to run smooth ecommerce operations. It has also been able to increase its D2C clientele by over 300 percent. 

The company has been on an expansion spree post lockdown, and rising ecommerce demand supported by increasing digitisation in the overall ecosystem has helped Unicommerce expand its presence to emerging categories like FMCG and personal care. With 1,400 new clients in the last one year, Unicommerce has emerged as one of the most preferred middleware solutions.

Over the years, the company has grown rapidly to become the backbone of ecommerce industry. At present, it serves over 10,000+ registered customers across India, processing more than 800,000+ order items per day, amounting to $4 billion+ GMV. Its key clients include Forever New, Chumbak, W, House of Anita Dongre, Vero Moda, Milton, and FloMattress, Enamor to name a few.

The company’s focus on superior customer support and great product evolving with the dynamic nature of the ecommerce industry has helped many brands scale their product.

One of its clients, Flo Mattress, a sleep solutions brand, was searching for a reliable supply chain solutions provider to support them in making their products available to customers across the country, improving the order fulfillment processes, and maintaining high customer experience by reducing returns and cancellations.

Unicommerce enabled Flo to seamlessly manage orders across its website, track inventory accurately, and handle returns effectively, helping them maintain their productivity and increase profitability. With his, the brand witnessed 30 percent improved order fulfillment rate and 10X growth in sales as well.

The market

According to a NASSCOM report, the share of ecommerce retail in total increased by 1.5 percent in the first six months of 2020, with ecommerce being 4.5 percent of overall retail. Prior to this, only 1.5 percent was added in a span of three years.

As per the Unicommerce ecommerce trends report launched last year, there was 65 percent growth in brands setting up their own website, and brand websites have seen almost 88 percent growth in order volume as compared to 32 percent growth on the marketplace. This number will further increase this year, as D2C phenomena has gained a lot of momentum post lockdown.

The company aims to increase India’s customer base by over 100 percent and target over 300 percent growth in international customer base with clients in its international markets Middle East and South-East Asia. Mostly recently, the company also strengthened its foothold in the Middle East market by setting up operations in Saudi Arabia.

To manage your business more efficiently and scale, visit Unicommerce