In India, Flipkart, Snapdeal, Paytm and Amazon combined have less than 2.5 lakh unique sellers - Harish Singla, Founder & Director, Blubox.in

Today the eCommerce market is expanding by leaps and bounds. There is an enormous untapped opportunity with just a few players catering to the market. The marketplaces are launching various programs to attract the sellers. Still, there are lots of issues that need to be addressed before coaxing these sellers to sell online like multiple guidelines, payment reconciliation, different policies on different e-shopping portals, etc.  Dataquest interacted with Harish Singla, Founder & Director, Blubox.in to get an idea about the potential the market has and challenges being faced. Excerpts

What is Blubox all about and what does it focus on?

Blubox is a platform that empowers sellers by simplifying their online selling process and enables the marketplaces to on-board maximum number of active sellers. The company was formed 3 years back in 2012, Blubox.in is a dynamic platform for brands that want to develop and explore their full potential by venturing into the eCommerce sphere.

Apart from this, we help sellers sell online through various marketplaces. We also help create e-stores for brands and help them with product advisory, cataloging and listing services, order processing and customer service, warehousing and inventory management warehousing and other services

How many e-portals and brands have you partnered with - name a few?

In the last 3 years BluBox.in has managed to partner with 15 e-shopping portals, including 5 of the leading online market places in the country today. Over a 150+ brands are already benefiting from our expertise and we have grown 10X times in the last 24 months alone!

To name a few are e-portals i.e. flipkart, snapdeal, amazon, jabong, myntra etc. and 155+ brands Dare, Zeel, Louppee, Ripfly etc.

BLUBOX is a ‘full service agency’ for Flipkart.com providing end-to-end services to Flipkart sellers and advising them on building their online brand by devising the right strategy.

Who are your competitors and what challenges do you face. How is your platform different from others?

Closest competitors are Sellerworx.com in Bangalore, Browntape in GOA. Our platform is different in many ways from Browntape & sellerworx.com.

In response to increasingly complex eCommerce requirements, the platform is capable of providing end-to-end services that make the company the ideal partner for brands looking to outsource the full management of their online business. Right from product advisory to payment reconciliation - blubox focus on the online division of the brand, leaving the sellers free to focus on their core business and overall growth.

Some of the key differentiators are:

a.Catalog Automation

b.Pricing & campaign where we help the sellers to calculate the expected payout, setting of marketplace selling price, storing of historical data and assessment of the profitability report

c. Payment recons which help the sellers to calculate the accuracy expected versus the payouts, shipping charges, handling order payment lifecycle

d.Analytics is the major key differentiator where we help the seller with the customer demographic data, price optimization, forecast sales etc.

Where the companies like Browntape & sellerworx are providing one or two services to the sellers like that of order integration and basics of payment recon, we at Blubox are giving the sellers the ocean of services.

What kind of funding have you got?

This month, Blubox has raised Rs. 66 lakh (USD 100,000) in angel funding led by Ashish Jhalani, promoter of Etailingindia.com and founder of Indian School of eBusiness. Others who participated in the round were Amit Jhalani, CEO of MySolitaire.com and Supreet Singh, a serial entrepreneur and CEO of Altor.co.in.

Today the eCommerce market is expanding by leaps and bounds. So what do you think will be the future of this space?

There is an enormous untapped opportunity with just a few players catering to the market. To give an idea about the potential market, Alibaba’s Taobao has more than 85 lakh sellers on its platform. In India, Flipkart, Snapdeal, Paytm and Amazon combined have less than 2.5 lakh unique sellers. This difference in numbers gives a picture of the growth potential of the market which has over 20 lakh untapped potential sellers.

However, these marketplaces are launching various programs to attract the sellers. Still, there are lots of issues that need to be addressed before coaxing these sellers to sell online like multiple guidelines, payment reconciliation, different policies on different e-shopping portals etc. And here, Blubox will be the largest aggregator proving one stop e-tailing solutions to the sellers with the help of technology & data analytics.