As B2B e-commerce has caught full steam in the Indian market, we recently covered the product story of an emerging start-up, Wholesaller in this space.
Briefly define your product?
Wholesaller.com is a Business to Business marketplace where the manufacturers and wholesalers can sell their products to retailers on its e-commerce website or mobile app. It also provides logistics, secure payments, and technical support along with credit to small businesses.
What are the key problems you solve for today’s businesses?
Besides a thriving e-commerce ecosystem, there is no digital platform for manufacturers & retailers for direct buying and selling. Less than 3% of businesses are involved in online buying and selling. The Digital B2B marketplace became popular only after the success of Udaan. The Total Addressable Market for B2B E-commerce is huge. Retailers are finding it difficult to find a trusted manufacturer to procure quality products. A retailer can’t trust any marketplace with payment and logistic problem .it will risky for a retailer or small business to purchase without knowing
Who are your customers? And why they do need your product?
Small and medium-sized businesses are our target customers, and now we are working in 2 tier, 3 tier cities and in small towns as the small store’s owner looking to purchase product have to travel a city like Kolkata , Delhi or Tirupur and he has to spend on travel expenses and logistics. Also, the stores might need to closed for 3, 5 days. If they purchase from a wholesaler like us, we fulfill all requirements without any extra hidden charges in lesser time and cost to get the products to their doorsteps.
With our smart and lightning-fast technology coupled with great b2b buying experience, retailers can choose buying plans as their requirements and get the right product delivered within 5 to 7 days.
With whom does your product compete in the market? How is it different or unique from others?
An exhaustive listing of suppliers and manufacturers across India
A B2B online trade platform that connects small and medium-sized manufacturers and wholesalers with online retailers and also provides them with logistics, payments, and technology support. We have sellers in over 80 cities of India, delivering to over 500 cities.
Credit access to businesses
Despite a lot of actions in the B2B lending space, none of the startups has been able to make a bigger dent in the segment. Most of the lending companies focus on facilitating the loan to mid-sized sellers who have a credit history. None is willing to get into financing small merchants.
“Since Wholesaller knows about the financial health of sellers through transaction history, understands the size of working capital requirement, and has the ability to recover, it’s in a perfect position to offer loans and collect them without much manpower involvement.”
We don’t just sell our products in our marketplace after 3 successful transactions, we provide 30% credit to our buyers from us. We have got a license as a Non-banking financial corporation (NBFC).
Who are your product users? What are the different use cases of the product?
Small businesses and retailers are our customers, we are giving an online platform to save their money and time to purchase products online. If they purchase offline, they face huge problems like unsecured payment with unknown suppliers, unreliable logistics, product selection, and non-available credit. Our buyers get 30% credit access on completing 3 successful transactions.
How does your product work?
Initially, we spend money on digital marketing to acquire customers but the ticket size was too small. After 1 year, we realized we need to put a salesperson as an account manager to win the trust of the buyer after that ticket size increased.
What have been your top product or growth challenges lately? And how are you managing that?
Initially, when we started our business in earlier 2018, we find it very difficult to onboard buyers and suppliers. Its a 500-year traditional market and nobody was interested to buy and sell online in bulk. Things have changed now, we are now seeing greater traction at our B2B marketplace.
What’s ahead on your Product Roadmap?
Revenue & Client Success
We started in April 2017 and till March 2019, we have been able to acquire 1000+ Retailers and 3000+ Buyers without any external funding. We expect to become the Top B2B Marketplace in India by Gross Merchandise Value (GMV), within the next 5 years. Hence, our share of the market in terms of GMV (number of SKU Transactions) is expected to be in the range of INR 800-1000 Cr ($115M-143M). This is calculated and not X% of Y Market Size
Maker behind the product
Prayash is an MBA from ICFAI, Hyderabad. After completing his MBA, Prayash started his own foreign exchange broking firm in Dubai. In 2017, due to regulatory hurdles he sold out his company and started a B2C marketplace. However, he realized there is no marketplace on B2B For small businesses and that is when he started wholesaller.com
