SaaS-based ecommerce player StoreHippo is riding the D2C wave to weave its success story

Launched in 2013, StoreHippo is a SaaS-based ecommerce platform that is also a one-stop solution for B2C and B2B players. It provides comprehensive turnkey solutions in the retail space, and provides the flexibility to implement diverge business models with ease and speed.

Speaking about emerging trends in the D2C space, Rajiv Kumar Aggarwal, Founder and CEO, StoreHippo, in a recent conversation with YourStory’s Daily Dispatch, said that the pandemic has helped in revolutionising the D2C sector with more than 800-900 brands emerging. At StoreHippo, the focus is not only on D2C brands but also on adjacent brands who want to implement their D2C and B2B presence, he added. “In the pandemic, we have seen more than 100 percent growth in our customers.” There was also a strategic shift in enterprises from offline to online retail, he noted.

ALSO READ

How ethnic wear brand Soch is ramping up its digital play to woo the post pandemic shopper

He shared that the B2B segment is a $250 billion segment with big IT players like TCS shifting their focus on to it. Despite the huge market opportunity, 90 percent of the enterprises are still using on premise solutions. “You can see that despite all the hype in the last 4-5 years, the enterprises are still slow in moving to online but Covid has accelerated that pace,” said Rajiv. It is a matter of survival in the current times for most of the enterprises and they are taking the shift to ‘online’ seriously.

Commenting on the customisation scenario, Rajiv said that it was a huge and very important design goal when they started building their platform. Earlier, the models were traditional and simpler but recently, business models have changed drastically. D2C companies in sectors like agritech, edtech, healthtech and others have different requirements which cannot be taken care of by traditional ecommerce platforms, he remarked.

“The platform needs to be flexible to cater to the requirements that are specific to the business models, and StoreHippo so far has been able to achieve that, and we can say that we are the most customisable ecommerce platform,” said Rajiv. 

According to the founder, at StoreHippo, the product roadmap is driven by customers. “The more requirements they come up with, the more features we are able to add,” he said. The company is adding more features to the D2C space in terms of visibility, more tools to analyse marketing activity and for a strong omni channel presence.  

He added that the company is not aggressively looking for funding, instead they are working closely with their strategic partners to expand footprint and leverage the momentum. StoreHippo currently has close to 1000 customers, and they plan to see this grow by at least 200-300 percent year-on-year in the next two to three years.

Rajiv concluded by saying that StoreHippo has been profitable starting last year and hence there’s no pressure in terms of reaching funds to sustain and grow. He added that the revenue target will be increased by the number of customers. Therefore, the 200-300 percent growth in the customer base will translate to growth in revenue. “Our average revenue per customer has increased during the pandemic by almost 80 percent,” he said.