Here’s how eBay is guiding local Indian herbal product manufacturers towards achieving their global dreams

The advent of the pandemic has led people to focus more on their health. People are slowly starting to understand the importance of maintaining their health, and there’s nothing better than herbal products to make sure that the body stays healthy and hearty. And while herbal products are popular among consumers in the Indian as well as international markets, the sector is very unorganised and the products are not marketed well enough to reach international markets.

But that’s where eBay came into the equation and made sure that local herbal brands made it to foreign markets with the help of their platform. This cross border platform has helped many brands ranging from herbal brands to gemstone businesses take their sales to the next level. Apart from just providing passionate sellers with a platform, eBay also helps them acclimatise with the process and provides them with guidance to make sure that they are following the right path.

One such seller who was helped by eBay was Amit Goyal, who returned to India after finishing his PhD research in the United States in 2010. A manufacturer of herbal products, Amit was inspired by his father to keep the quality of his products top-notch and keep customer satisfaction on high priority.

Finding the market for herbal products

After conducting comprehensive research from 2010 to 2012, Amit discovered that people living abroad were slowly realising the medicinal and health advantages of Indian herb extracts. Encouraged by this bit of information, he set out to find international buyers and when he found it difficult to reach them initially, one of his friends suggested he try eBay as a platform to push his products into the international market. Amit listed a few of his products on eBay to give this suggestion a try and hoped that a bulk customer would respond to their listings. Within a couple of days, retail customers started placing orders on his listings.

As Amit started listing more products on the platform, the number of orders started increasing as well, thus ensuring an exponential growth for his brand. Amit says that he had always dreamt of his products having an international brand value, and he has realised this dream with eBay coming into the picture.

Before joining eBay, Amit faced major problems regarding payments as he faced a loss of about Rs 3-4 lakhs initially due to purchase on credit payment system. eBay helped him solve all of those problems while ensuring that the growth of his brand is greater and faster than expected. This growth has led to a large number of demands, and Amit is planning to set up a new manufacturing unit to keep up with them.

Apart from constantly helping passionate sellers like Amit set up an international business, eBay has always been there for sellers to guide them through all hurdles and make sure that they have help throughout the process.

Another such inspiring story is that of Padam Singh who registered himself on eBay in 2017, but he found it difficult to settle in the cross border e-commerce ecosystem. The major problems that Padam faced initially were ensuring the right kind of packaging and label designs, and ensuring an end to end localised buying experience.

Additionally, his business saw a low sales volume of over 15 orders/month, which coupled with quarterly GMV sales of not more than $5000 demotivated him. Moreover, with his products incurring high custom duties at buyer countries, Padam had to charge a higher shipping fee for his products which negatively impacted his buyer feedback score.

eBay’s guidance and rapid growth

With eBay’s guidance, Padam managed to see a 50% MoM increase in the number of orders. They also helped Padam understand the FDA norms around packaging and labelling products for building long term credibility and trust. Next, he enrolled on eBay’s global shipping platform to overcome challenges related to shipping, which not only helped him get reasonable shipping rates but also gain knowledge on custom policies.

In the present day, Padam receives more than 500 orders a month with a 10x growth in quarterly GMV sales, and the overall optimisation on eBay’s cross-border platform has helped him get a feedback score of 100%.

From a team that started off with 4 people, Amalth has now grown to employ 14 people, with a 10,000 square feet manufacturing unit. Looking forward, Padam says that with his exposure to international customers in multiple demographics, he wants to introduce a new Ayurveda category soon.

Many such local herbal brand owners like Amit and Padam have benefitted from eBay’s ‘Sirf Local Nahi, International Seller’ campaign, and have gone international in a short span of time. Apart from providing sellers with a platform to list their products, eBay also provides sellers with various insights and tools to help their B2C e-commerce business flourish on the platform. Moving beyond just financial success, this is an attempt to try and empower local sellers and help them thrive on the international stage.

If you have a local business but want to make a foray into the international markets, visit eBay to know more.