This woman entrepreneur has started an online marketplace for homepreneurs and home-based businesses

After the birth of her second daughter, Sakshi Aggarwal decided to take a sabbatical. A successful finance professional with stints at Citibank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, IndusInd Bank and ICICI Securities, entrepreneurship was not a planned decision.

However, an entrepreneurship idea germinated for Sakshi during the pandemic. She started Gharobaar, a #MakeinIndia #VocalforLocal initiative, which is an exclusive platform for homepreneurs and home-based businesses to display and sell their products online

“I observed there are multiple small homepreneurs involved in various activities like cooking, knitting, painting etc., but they do not have the wherewithal to run the business all by themselves, or do not have the business acumen. They are experts at what they do, but do not know how to create a business out of it,” she says.

Sakshi also noticed that from a buyer’s point of view, with changing trends, there was an increased focus on organic, handmade, local, trustworthy, and high-quality products that can be made available at a single place at reasonable prices. 

Buoyed by the support of her family, she incorporated Gharobaar in December 2020 and launched full operations in October 2021. The name is a portmanteau of ghar (home) and karobaar (business).

To cater to this opportunity, Sakshi and her co-founder Aditya Gupta, her husband’s childhood friend, created both supplier and buyer personas - suppliers were categorised as per product categories, and buyers as per their buying needs and preferences.

She explains, “We brainstormed on the offering and tried to find answers to why a seller should sell with us, and why a buyer should buy from us. Post that, we collaborated with a tech company, shared our thoughts with them through business requirement documents, and worked together on launching the MVP (Minimum viable product).”

In parallel, they started acquiring suppliers and working on building awareness. They also hired a marketing agency to work with them for brand building, and to begin sensitising people about the offering. 

“Our mission is to create an ever-growing family of buyers and sellers, transacting in quality products and services, provided from home at affordable prices, and offering exceptional services to all the family members. Our vision is to be India’s most preferred marketplace, known for contributing effectively to the society, facilitating the entrepreneurial journey of aspiring local talent, and staying connected to our roots,” she says.

While Gharobaar’s suppliers are based in 23 states, its corporate office is in Delhi. Most of the test marketing is also being done in Delhi, wherein along with online, the founders are also deploying a few offline engagement techniques by organising exhibitions and participating in fairs.

Multiple categories, multiple products

Gharobaar features suppliers on its platform that cater to all daily needs of an average household, starting from food, groceries, personal care, to home decor, art, stationery, gifting etc.

“Our strategy is that if a buyer starts transacting for a particular category, then we should be able to sell multiple categories on the back of the quality of products and the exceptional customer service. Ours is a curated platform wherein we personally choose the suppliers and in almost 70-80 percent of the cases, experiencing their products at our household before onboarding them,” she adds.

Most of these products, Sakshi says, are handmade, mostly produced in a small home set up, with the lead time to service an order defined on the platform clearly for a buyer to make an informed decision. There are some made-to-stock products as well that are fast moving with a quicker lead time, however, with limited inventory.  

The founders have also offered a stake in the company to their IT partners - Austere Services, who help them in managing the website and other activities, including its offline events. 

They are on a lookout for a co-founder with marketing expertise to drive the next round of growth of the platform. 

The target audience is the middle-class segment of the population whose daily needs can be addressed through the platform, with the focus being higher in the first phase on working couples, students and elderly staying alone. 

“We treat our suppliers as our channel partners and equally important as the buyers. Our target is to have as many suppliers as possible onboard from pan India, listing high quality products on our platform. For our few categories, we have specific buyer personas in mind, and would start target marketing with them in the next couple of months. In subsequent phases, we plan to penetrate in Tier II and III markets from both buyers and sellers perspective,” says Sakshi.

Gharboaar’s revenue model, to start with, is a nominal commission-based one, but the founders identified many other monetisation avenues such as subscription models, advertisements, service charges (packaging, photography, designing, etc.) as well, which they plan to implement once they gain more traction.

Currently, they support suppliers by bearing the shipping cost, and offering event specific discounts on the platform. 

A customer and supplier-centric approach

Sakshi points out that the online market in India is under-penetrated as compared to developed nations like China, and in the space in which they are operating, they may face competition from biggies like Amazon (with their Karigar programme) and some other curated platforms.

“Our strategy is to have a customer and supplier centric approach in everything we do -- with exceptional service being provided for everything that a household needs. We plan to reach out to all those potential suppliers/talents who may be reluctant to get associated with a bigger player or may need a lot of support before they can start their online business.

Similarly, through a combination of online and offline traction techniques, we want to reach out to our target buyer personas,” she adds.

A bootstrapped startup with initial investment from the founders and family, Gharobaar plans to approach the market for funds after testing a few user cases.

Sakshi claims, in six months, the platform has seen a growth rate of 15-20 percent per month, and the visitors to the website growing at the rate of 25-30 percent monthly.

In terms of actual sales, while the growth has been encouraging, 60-70 percent of it has been contributed through offline channels and balance through online, which she feels they need to reverse.

Sakshi says the support of her family has been an overriding factor in her journey as an entrepreneur.

“I was vehemently encouraged by my family to start the entrepreneurship journey when they realised my passion for the cause that we are trying to address through Gharobaar. I have received technical, financial, psychological, and spiritual support from my family in this journey. Not for a single day I felt out of place, and I truly believe that I belong here. 

I recognise that I’ve been fortunate and there’s a lot more that we need to do in order to offer equal support, to hone the skills, realise the true potential, dream big and enable the growth desired by women,” she says, as she signs off.