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Tag: Sanjay Sethi

  • ShopClues.com Offers a Stroll Down ‘Korean Avenue’

    ShopClues.com Offers a Stroll Down ‘Korean Avenue’

    New Delhi: – Expanding its international portfolio to bring the best value-for-money products to its customers from Real Bharat, ShopClues.com launched its new online store – ‘Korean Avenue’ – offering over 1,000 affordable Korean products such as beauty and cosmetics, fashion electronics and home & Kitchen appliances.

    With the new addition of the K-Beauty range, ShopClues now has a total of 30+ international brands on its platform that are a huge hit among shoppers living in metros, Tier II/III/IV and beyond cities of India. Those looking for exclusive Korean K-Beauty and electronics products that have become quite a rage in India and globally, can now buy them online from ‘Korean Avenue’ that lists a range of exclusive products from brands like Cosrx, It’s Skin, Koelcia, Secret Key, Dermal, Bio Miracle,April Skin, Banila Co, Laneigeand Redbean.

    ‘Although Korean beauty brands entered the Indian market in 2013, they have caught the fancy of the Indian consumer across market segments only recently. With our new partners on board, and we have put together a portfolio of brands and products that is a combination of popular products and exclusive products. The ShopClues customer is both tech-savvy and trend-conscious, so we have got a tremendous response in the soft launch period. Overall, we are expecting a 15-20% uptick in total orders from cross-border trade.’” said Sanjay Sethi, Co-founder, and CEO, ShopClues.com

    Buyers who log on to ShopClues.com can enjoy the affordable, durable and great looking range of products from ‘Korean Avenue’ that include fantastic choices in beauty, skincare, speakers and home decor. Some of the premium products like Korean Healing Bamboo Mat Rug, Secret Key Multi Cell Night Repair Ampoule, Serum, Toners, Face masks, etc. are among the exciting new products that will also be available under the new Korean Avenue range. Similar original Korean beauty products available at much higher cost on other platforms, however given our relationship we are able to pass on the price benefit to our customers.

    S. No. 

    Product

    Price

    1

    Herbal & Hydrating Face Masks

    Starts @ 89

    2

    Herbal Cleansing Foam and Gel

    Starts @ 399

    3

    Lipstick, Nail paints & Eyeliner

    Starts @ 200

    4

    Korean Make-up Products

    Starts @ 490
  • ShopClues raises Series E at a valuation of $1.1 billion

    ShopClues raises Series E at a valuation of $1.1 billion

    MUMBAI: Online retailer ShopClues.com that led the adoption of the marketplace model in India received an undisclosed amount of funding in its Series E round. With this deal, ShopClues’ valuation stands at more than $1.1 billion. The round of capital infusion is being led by GIC, the largest sovereign wealth fund of Singapore. Existing investors, including Tiger Global and Nexus Venture Partners, have also participated in this round of funding.

     

    GIC’s head of Asia Equities research Ravi Balasubramanian said, “As a long-term investor, GIC believes in the strong growth potential of India’s e-commerce industry. We are confident that ShopClues’ merchant-first mind-set and solid management team will enable the company to expand its reach, especially in the Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, bringing its unique value proposition to even more consumers and merchants.”

     

    ShopClues CEO and co-founder Sanjay Sethi added, “ShopClues has consistently demonstrated that hyper-growth and strong business fundamentals are not mutually exclusive. The recent addition of GIC and the continued strong support from our existing investors is a validation of our capital efficiency with a clear path to profitability. This investment will enable us to double our focus on digitising our merchants’ businesses so that they scale to fully leverage the opportunity online commerce provides them.”

     

    The capital raised will be used to focus on building and rolling out new products to enable the SME merchants to digitise their business and to further entrench itself as the e-commerce operating system on the cloud.

     

    ShopClues co-founder and chief business officer Radhika Aggarwal said, “Today, we are the dominant player in low price-point & unstructured categories like lifestyle, home, kitchen, electronic & automotive accessories etc. Our focus on selection, value and trusted shopping for Indian middle class consumers has given us tremendous scale with a rapidly growing buyer & merchant network. We are confident that our capital efficiency & execution will make this our last fund raise before we become profitable with the eventual IPO in 2017.”

  • TO THE NEW Digital organises Tech-a-Thon

    TO THE NEW Digital organises Tech-a-Thon

    MUMBAI: TO THE NEW Digital recently organised a Tech-a-Thon, a programming event for the programmers and hackers community. The two-day event was co-sponsored by Aarvee Idealabs (LoudShout) and ShopClues.

     

    Tech-a-Thon witnessed participation of 10 teams working 48 hours at a stretch to develop applications from scratch on different technology platforms including Grails, Node.js, MongoDB and Android. The winning team was from TO THE NEW Digital, which created an interactive chat application called Ping that offered features like messaging, video chat and video conferencing.

     

    The winners were picked by a panel of industry experts like ShopClues.com CEO and co-founder Sanjay Sethi, TO THE NEW Digital CEO Deepak Mittal and e-commerce architect Amitabh Misra.

     

    “We are really proud to co-sponsor Tech-a-Thon. This is a great initiative to enlighten this exciting ecosystem and bring together the tech community in order to explore new opportunities. This not only brings out news ideas but also some promote entrepreneurship,” said Mittal.

     

    The event also had different workshops and sessions on niche technologies given by industry experts like Adobe director of engineering Ankush Sharma, Microsoft developer solutions architect Vivek Goyal, and B2B Startup founder and CTO Vangapelli Santhosh Kumar.

  • ShopClues launches Neighbourhood Market for localised sellers

    ShopClues launches Neighbourhood Market for localised sellers

    MUMBAI: E-commerce venture ShopClues is set to redefine online shopping norms with its latest offering – the Neighbourhood Market. 

     

    With this new feature, ShopClues will create opportunities for localised sellers to showcase their products to buyers near them across mobile and web platforms. The discovery engine selects and brings forth deals and merchandise of local vendors, spread across all categories for an easy purchase experience. 

     

    The Neighbourhood Market will also provide customers with best prices along with faster delivery timelines, speedier complaint resolution and quicker return protocol. ShopClues is targeting a reduced delivery time of four hours with this initiative.

     

    ShopClues.com co-founder and CEO Sanjay Sethi said, “ShopClues is known in the e-commerce segment for its value-driven technological development and innovative shopping approach that cater to the specific preferences of Indian consumer. Our latest offering, the Neighbourhood Market will enable local shoppers and sellers to interact for a better overall shopping experience. Many of our users are first-time buyers who are used to shopping from malls or local bazaars. They prefer to have a physical face to their purchases which is now possible with our new property.”

     

    At present, ShopClues offers more than 19 million products from around 200k sellers across the country and has over two million daily visitors.

  • ShopClues’ Windows app registers over 80K users in 3 months

    ShopClues’ Windows app registers over 80K users in 3 months

    MUMBAI: ShopClues.com launched its Windows app in February and now within less than three months since launch, the app has registered 80,000 plus users.

     

    ShopClues.com co-founder and CEO Sanjay Sethi said, “India is one of the top two markets globally for the number of active Windows phone devices. Given the large-scale popularity of this operating system, it was the natural choice for us to launch a Windows app. However, we too, have been pleasantly surprised by the way users have taken to the app with such alacrity. We attribute this thumping success to the app’s ability to offer the most seamless user experience and make shopping across categories much faster.”

     

    The app lets users browse through their favourite products from the widest categories of mobiles, laptops, fashion, TV and a lot more. The app can be downloaded for free and gives instant alerts on best deals, big discounts and exciting offers. It also provides users with other features like the ability to add products to their ‘Favourite’ list for later purchase.

     

    Consumer can also benefit from ratings and reviews of other users while making purchase decisions and also share what they see/like/buy on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp. Additionally, the app offers multiple payment options and a completely secure and hassle-free purchase process.

  • Shopclues.com organises Mumbai’s first Sellers’s Summit

    Shopclues.com organises Mumbai’s first Sellers’s Summit

    MUMBAI: While it’s a general trend to see e-commerce companies organising events for their consumers, Mumbai saw its first Sellers’ Summit for the benefit of all the merchants organised by Shopclues.com.

     

    Close to 250 top retailers across categories of ShopClues attended the event from all over Maharashtra and Gujarat, including companies like Sukkhi, Gitanjali and HUL amongst others.

     

    Commending the organisers for a refreshing concept like this, entrepreneur and social philanthropist Ronnie Screwvala said, “I appreciate the efforts of the ShopClues team for conceptualising the unique initiative of the Sellers’ Summit to acknowledge the contributions of merchants across the country. E-commerce has fuelled the startup community in India and ShopClues has taken this potent phenomenon to its next stage.”

     

    Shopclues.com CEO and co-founder Sanjay Sethi added, “The objective is to show them our appreciation for the significant contributions they make towards our inventory and customer service excellence. Without them playing the role of pivotal stakeholders, we wouldn’t have been able to reach our present-day success.”

     

    The highlight of the Sellers’ Summit was when Screwvala handed over the Merchant Awards to handpicked retailers for their outstanding work in various spheres.

  • ShopClues partners NSFDC to promote rural craft & artisans

    ShopClues partners NSFDC to promote rural craft & artisans

    MUMBAI: ShopClues.com, a multi-category online marketplace, has joined hands with National Scheduled Castes Finance & Development Corporation (NSFDC) to support hundreds of smaller sellers and artisans from backward classes to find a wider market for their goods.

     

    The company has entered into an MoU with NSFDC, which is a Government of India undertaking under the aegis of Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment. The vision behind this partnership is to provide a robust online marketing platform to the products made by NSFDC beneficiaries. This way, they expand their reach tremendously and the customers of ShopClues get ready access to their stellar productions. 

     

    ShopClues will also provide training, infrastructural support in marketing, data analytics and customer acquisition to the NSFDC beneficiaries. Their catalogues will become a part of the ShopClues’ National Retail Heritage (NRH), which has previously pushed sales for numerous local manufacturers and artisans. NRH is an effort by ShopClues to bring online, the most popular markets of India that are famous for their unique product offering.

     

    ShopClues.com CEO & co-founder Sanjay Sethi said, “We saw an immense potential for the NSFDC beneficiaries in the e-commerce revolution that is happening in the country. They not only get to leverage our platform, but also gain confidence in their work thanks to the enhanced sales, professional training and exposure that they will get via ShopClues. We look forward to expanding the scope of our CSR initiatives in a similar manner that leads to a win-win situation for the retailers, for us and for our customers.”

     

    NSFDC CMD RK Singh added, “The purpose of our association with ShopClues.com is to economically empower the scheduled caste artisans by providing them an online e-retailing platform and mentoring to organize them in cluster mode,  upgrade their product quality and upscale their production to meet the marketing demand. This would enable them to earn sustainable incomes in the long run and become successful entrepreneurs. Online marketplaces like ShopClues has democratized brand-creation – so, we’re hoping that the merchandise produced by our community finds mass-appeal and these artisans get recognition in India and abroad.”

     

    ShopClues will help the ministry to prepare catalogue of products for the beneficiaries with attractive pictures, accurate prices, descriptions etc. and display it on its website. It will also update this catalogue periodically to drive sales. The team at ShopClues will intimate the local sellers through e-mail, SMS or telephone about orders from buyers. Payments will be made to the vendor/seller through RTGS/NEFT after the delivery of goods. Also on the anvil is a classroom and on-the-job training for sellers on e-marketing-related subjects such as merchandising, quality management, packing and shipping of products.

  • Tiger Global infuses $100 million funding in ShopClues

    Tiger Global infuses $100 million funding in ShopClues

    MUMBAI: Online retailer ShopClues.com has raised over $100 million in a fresh round of funding led by global institutional investors Tiger Global as well as its existing investors Helion Venture Partners and Nexus Venture Partners.

     

    ShopClues CEO and co-founder Sanjay Sethi said that the company has bought 100,000 sellers and 10 million products online until now and plans are afoot to bring 10 million sellers and one billion products on the online domain in the next three years.

     

    “We will continue to build technologies and services to enable and empower retailers to participate in the e-commerce revolution that is happening in India. ShopClues levels the playing fields for SMBs to compete with other organized retailers both in the online and offline space,” added Sethi.

     

    Tiger Global partner Lee Fixel said, “ShopClues has emerged as the leading marketplace of choice for the millions of small and local businesses seeking to reach mass consumers in India’s tier 2 and tier 3 cities. Sanjay, Radhika and the team have done a great job aggregating the country’s largest online catalog of regional and local brands and we are excited to partner with ShopClues as it expands its offerings.”

     

    ShopClues co-founder Radhika Ghai Aggarwal feels that in Tiger Global, it has found a strategic partner who showed confidence in its capability to operate the country’s largest marketplace for the masses. Be it the million of small merchants wanting to sell online or the vast pool of shoppers in tier 2-3 towns looking for access to the products and categories that they never had before.

     

    “The fact that another ace investor has been added to our list of institutional investors is a strong endorsement of our team, strategy and business performance,” she added.

     

    ShopClues was founded in 2011 as India’s first fully managed marketplace, when all other players were inventory led models. Currently, ShopClues does 1.5 million transactions per month with 70 per cent of them coming from tier 2 and 3 cities and the platform empowers over 1 lakh SMBs which is the largest community of sellers in India in the online space.

     

    Unlike other marketplaces, which tend to focus on mobile, electronics, computers and branded fashion, ShopClues focuses on unstructured categories, which contributes to two-third of its revenues.