India’s rising direct selling industry

IDSA (Indian Direct Selling Association) Annual Survey 2020-21 states that the direct selling industry was valued at Rs 18,000 crore in 2020-21, registering a 7.7 percent year-on-year growth. 

Despite its growth and the potential of misuse — looking at you, pyramid schemes — regulations have been slow to catch up. 

Last December, the Consumer Protection (Direct Selling) Rules, 2021, came into force and the centre asked companies to comply with it within 90 days. This rule has brought about various changes for the companies and consumers by bringing in registration processes, GST filings, restrictions on charging commission fees, and other regulations.

So, what does the future look like for the direct selling industry in India?

SMBStory spoke to Samir Modi (Founder and Managing Director of Modicare Ltd), Sujit Jain (Chairman and Managing Director of Netsurf Network), and Gautam Bali (Managing Director of Vestige Marketing) to get an insider perspective of the industry and understand the road ahead for direct sellers given the implementation of the new rules.

Samir says the rules will be helpful in setting apart genuine direct sellers from pyramid schemes.

“The policy also restricts direct selling entities from charging registration fees from their consultants, which is another move that we fully support as we don’t charge our consultants any registration fee and that has been part of our ethos. This move will further encourage more people to set aside their apprehensions and join the direct selling industry,” he adds. Read more. 

Editor’s Pick: Product Roadmap

Apna, which became a unicorn in 2021, helps job seekers by setting up simple profiles requiring basic demographic and education details. It then generates a virtual business card for them and leverages its machine learning (ML)-powered job matching algorithm to find and showcase the most relevant job opportunities for the user.  

Since its inception in 2019, the platform has grown from facilitating 1,000  job interviews per month to a staggering 20 million job interviews per month. Read more. 

Startup Spotlight

Making renting homes hassle-free 

To provide end-to-end property management and renting solutions to both owners and tenants with online/offline techniques, three friends — Satish Singh, Vivekanand Singh, and Shashi Bhushan Mall — launched Bivocalbirds in 2020. 

The Noida-based proptech startup aims to offer end-to-end home solutions to customers — both owners and tenants — in Noida, Greater Noida, and Ghaziabad. Read more. 

News & Updates

• Nazara Technologies, through its subsidiary Nodwin, has approved the acquisition of a 35 percent stake in Brandscale Innovations for around Rs 10 crore. The transaction is expected to close in one month by May 20, 2022.
• Fintech company BharatPe has announced the appointment of Smiriti Handa to the post of Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) as the company deals with complaints of non-payment of salaries for the month of March and non-payment of dues to retrenched employees. 
• The Flipkart Group on Tuesday said it has acquired ANS Commerce, a full-stack ecommerce enabler that helps brands sell online. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2022, subject to customary closing conditions.
• According to a report by venture capital firm Iron Pillar, last year's unicorn boom in India is just the beginning. The VC firm expects the country to be home to over 250 startups with billion-dollar-plus valuations by 2025.
• The Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) industry in India is expected to register a revenue of $100 billion by 2026 from the level of $8 billion in 2021, according to a report titled “India SaaS - Punching Through the Global Pecking Order”. 

Before you go, stay inspired with… 

“One should have the ability to select the client and not the other way around.” 

— Mahesh Singhi, Founder and MD, Singhi Advisors

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