JOIN USMany small business owners want to expand or start their business by selling online, but they are not aware of how to go about it. Anurag Avula, Yen Ti Lim and Kris Chen got the idea of Shopmatic after meeting many small business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs.
“The idea of starting Shopmatic was that technology know-how and costs shouldn’t prevent sellers from fulfilling their aspirations while giving them a level playing field with the entire ecosystem to sell,” says CEO and Founder of Shopmatic Anurag Avula.
Started in December 2014, the company has been witnessing tremendous growth in merchants leveraging its platform with monthly growth rates in excess of 40%.
“The journey has been very exciting so far. Our approach of simplicity with a wide value proposition to our customers has deepened our engagement with sellers and grown the category of online sellers,” Avula adds.
The startup’s clients come from all walks of life. From merchants who sell designer clothes and jewellery, to dog food and hand-made boxes, to even Ayurvedic products, Shopmatic has it all.
“We also have merchants build sites for services with Shopmatic — like photographers, fitness trainers, home tutors, and even NGOs. We also extend customer service in many different ways, to our merchants — a dedicated support phone line to connect with ecommerce consultants who offer expert advice to any customer who has subscribed with us, to live-chats on the site,” he says.
Shopmatic has two products in the market –— PRO, a platform that enables the entire ecosystem for anyone wanting to sell online, that works on $20 a month subscription model. Go — a mobile app, that is free and helps recruit newbies into the digital world.
“With Go and Pro, we are managing merchants through their entire life cycle. For a first-time merchant who is tentative about the online world, we are offering him the familiarity of the phone that he is used to, to build out a webstore. With Go, one can get a site up and running in two minutes. For a person who is slightly more comfortable with the online world, they can choose PRO to help set up their stores — with much more functionality and features built in, than what Go has to offer,” he says.
Shopmatic GO is available both on IOS and Android and has clocked 1.47 lakh downloads. Over 75,000 merchants are selling on the Shopmatic platform.
After having successfully scaled its operations in India, Singapore and Hong Kong, Shopmatic will be using the freshly raised funds to expand into other markets in Indonesia, the Philippines and the Middle East. Shopmatic has recently raised $5.7 million in Series AA funding led by ACP Pte Ltd, a technology focussed Venture Capital firm, and SPRING SEEDS Capital Pte. Ltd, the investment subsidiary of SPRING Singapore.
“We are targeting two lakh merchants selling on our platform this fiscal. Currently, we have 50 employees, and we are growing,” he adds.