Entrepreneur Story: Twists and Turns

It was during my school days in Erode, a small town in Tamil Nadu, that I first got bitten by the entrepreneurial bug. I always had a passion for technology and, since I hail from a business family, I suppose it was only natural that I wanted to be an entrepreneur.

Even while I studied at the PSG College of Technology in Coimbatore, I took on the role of placement representative of my class-an early indication of the attribute that I would require later as an entrepreneur, I suppose. My job was to convince IT firms that came over for campus interviews to consider candidates from my discipline.

Having completed college in 1997, I moved to Chennai to join a part-time MBA course. That move proved fortuitous for it was there that I met Ritesh Katariya. It was a meeting of minds-both of us wanted to get out of our respective family businesses and start a venture of our own. Besides, our qualifications were complementary-Ritesh had a commerce background and I had studied IT.

The Inspiration

This was perfect for the e-commerce venture we established in mid-1998 after getting inspired by Amazon and eBay-www.chennaibazaar.com, which retailed groceries, fruits, vegetables, fast-moving consumer goods, and the like.

 

Though our market was limited to Chennai, we launched it with great fanfare on December 28, 1998. It brought smiles to our faces when we thought of how uncharacteristic the big launch was of the small operation the business was then-it was housed in Ritesh's bedroom with just one employee, apart from both of us.

Fortunately, the media picked up our story and we became fairly popular. Soon, several Chennai residents were shopping on ChennaiBAZAAR. We sourced products just-in-time from vendors and delivered them to customers in and around the city. Also, we were probably one of the first companies to allow customers to pay cash on delivery.

Experiments

We also tried offering railway ticket reservations online through an authorized agent. We built a reservation request application form to be filled in by customers online. On its submission, the agent would receive the form in the form of an email. We would verify the application with the customer and get the tickets booked. That too was offered on the basis of cash-on-delivery.

Since this too was a first of its kind, we received a huge response. Many people from different parts of the country used the service. Sadly, we later faced a few challenges because of which we had to discontinue the service. The business, however, was ahead of its time-internet penetration was low and our business model was challenging because of daily price fluctuations and low margins. Also, the seed capital was small, which gave use very little elbow room-we had to make money from the word go or the business would become unsustainable.

To top it all, there was great pressure to return to our respective family businesses. Our families took a long time to accept our chosen path, but they eventually came around.

And then Finally...

By mid-1999, we had built a good customer base in Chennai but were worried that we wouldn't register profits. Fortunately, we had lot of emails from non-resident Indians of Chennai-origin asking if we could deliver flowers and gifts to their families in the city. After analyzing the Indian diaspora market and its needs, we quickly changed our business model.

ChennaiBAZAAR was relaunched as an online store that enabled the Indian diaspora in the US, UK, and elsewhere to send gifts to their families back home.

In May 1999, we started our delivery network in Chennai, then expanded to greater Chennai and other parts of Tamil Nadu. Soon, we were in several cities and towns across India. Since we had to deliver flowers, cakes, and other perishable products, we had to build a network that could deliver orders on time and keep quality standards high.

There were, however, several occasions when Ritesh and I had to act as delivery boys ourselves, especially during busy times such as the run-up to Valentine's Day or Mother's Day, to deliver flowers and gifts.

It was this avatar of ChennaiBAZAAR that started clocking profits. It was a ray of hope-if we continued doing this, we could develop a self-sustaining business model. We knew that we had to be profitable and growing at the same time. With this in mind, we expanded our product categories to include apparel, jewelery, electronics, and more. We became the first e-commerce company to sell sarees online, making the world's first ever online sale of the garment in early 2000.

Investment in Right Technology

The next step was to work on developing a good customer experience. We invested in the right technology with the help of a great in-house team. We became the first website from India to allow international customers to pay in their local currencies. We accepted US dollars and 8 other international currencies, making it easier to shop with us and expanding our customer base.

In 2005, we realized that our average order size was $20 (about '1,000). It took a lot of time and resources to deliver such a small order; we had to find ways of increasing the ticket size.

By then, we were convinced that there was a large market for Indian ethnic wear in the US, UK, and Australia. We decided to launch Cbazaar.com aiming to become the world's largest Indian ethnic clothing online retailer.

Between 2005 and 2008, we spent a lot of time building our supply chain, working with manufacturers across India. Ritesh had become an expert at sourcing and building a consistent supply chain. I took on the management of front-end departments such as website product development, IT, marketing, and customer support. We identified strong suppliers across different locations from whom we were able the source the latest designs of Indian clothes and launch them within a week of the new designs being released. Our global customers would look forward to the latest designs every day and then plan their purchases. We never looked back from there.

Today, Cbazaar.com offers close to 15,000 unique Indian clothing designs. We upload 150-200 new designs every day, and our customers are spread across 54 countries. We recently launched in India as Cbazaar.in and our customer proposition is great variety, low prices, and value for money.

I am proud that we never had to turn to a venture capitalist or angel funding for Cbazaar. At every stage, our mission statement served as the guiding light. Our driving force still remains the same: To be one of the preferred and most trusted global leaders in online Indian fashion, by consistently delivering quality products, with an experience surpassing all expectations.