Instamojo forays into e-commerce sector; aims at powering 100k DTC brands at the end of 2021
Mumbai: In a recent development, Instamojo, a full-stack digital solutions provider for MSMEs, announced the company’s entry into the e-commerce space with the launch of its new e-commerce platform enabling small businesses and DTC brands to come online. With this initiative, Instamojo will now enable DTC brands to launch their own independent online stores, empowered by the existing digital solutions offered by the company. Merchants can now build an online profile along with running and managing their online businesses. The company currently offers merchants digital solutions which include online payments, logistics, credit services, free learning platform called mojoversity and more for business to gain visibility. Early 2020, the company acquired GetMeAShop (GMAS), an e-commerce enablement firm backed by Times Internet, and closed its Pre-Series C round of funding in the later part of 2020.
Focused on empowering the MSME sector, Instamojo has long continued its efforts towards bringing small business online. Speaking about becoming India’s new e-commerce solutions provider for MSMEs, Sampad Swain, CEO & Co-founder, Instamojo said, “When we began Instamojo, the focus was on enabling digital payments through our pioneering product, the “payment link”. It was then in 2018 that we as a company came to the realisation that a model based on standalone payments will not survive, and that we need to look for new avenues of growth via a diversified commerce platform. We needed a sustainable model with characteristics like brand affinity, cascading network effects, higher margins, etc., and this we found in e-commerce. We already had the free online store feature since inception, and in early 2020, we acquired the Times group backed company GET ME A Shop (GMAS), a SAAS based model of starting online stores for businesses which are home grown and aspirational in nature. Putting together the expertise of GMAS and our learning from serving millions of MSMEs, Instamojo is now venturing full-fledged into the space of e-commerce. We are aiming to redefine online store business, and possibly be one of the first to build a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) SaaS business for small businesses and DTC brandsin India.”
The new e-commerce platform will help simplify the process of taking an offline business to the digital format. The platform is suitable for the smallest of businesses, and will broadly offer merchants the following:
· The tools to build and manage your own business website, and gain digital independency
· Integrated services which include digital payments, logistics, instant pay-outs, access to credit, marketing tools and CRM
· The Do it for Me (DIFM) feature where Instamojo’s tech experts take charge of building a merchant’s website to provide a hassle free experience
Sampad further added, “To be able to tread onto the digital storefront path, merchants will require more than just setting up the online store. A digital storefront’s consistency is directly proportional to continued customer side engagement which is why it is the need of the hour to make available sustainable solutions for small businesses. Starting from payments, instant payouts to solve cash flow crunch, reseller network and marketing tools to cover aspects like discoverability, brand visibility and post sales customer delight, Instamojo has created an entire ecosystem of not just starting business online but also start transacting immediately. With our e-commerce offerings today, we aim to on-board 100k DTC brands at the end of this year.”
The company came out of beta version of the e-commerce platform in February’21. The platform clocked more than 100% growth in the 1st quarter post the launch in key performance indicators which included subscriptions, active paying customers and net subscriber addition with 95% retention.