Providing unique product line to female shoppers: Zumbasa.com

Revolving around the oldest stereotypes it won’t be wrong to say that women have an insatiable appetite for shoes, handbags and sparkly things. And for a retail business women are multiple markets for one. In this rising eCommerce tide, many studies say that Indian women will fuel $3 billion of e-shopping by 2016.
Last 24-26 months have seen a frenetic growth in women consumers lapping up the convenience of shopping online. Fuelling the trend, many women centric eCommerce ventures are focused on this opportunity and even some older once tweaking their business models to chase after it.
In a candid conversation with Retailer Media, Richa Gupta, Founder of Zumbasa.com (an online marketplace working extensively towards bringing more international brands for women, through a single platform) shared her thoughts on some of the recent trends in eCommerce landscape and her plans towards the helm of the company.

Talk to us about Zumbasa and the journey so far?
Well the journey so far has been fantastic. Zumbasa.com was started with the idea of providing superior consumer experience to the Indian audience in terms of products and after sales services, which we are always striving to achieve on a daily basis.

In this one-stop shop e-Commerce environment, do you think there is a need for gender specific players? Why?
Oh! Yes, absolutely.
There are two ways to shop-one is wearing what the masses are wearing, which means you go to your trusted one stop E-commerce shop who has a selected few brands that everyone is shopping from. There you click on your gender-specific category andsearch for the article you want, then further tone it down with attributes, after which you further scroll through items, take apart bad quality from good quality and then maybe you will find something to your liking.
The other is you shop at a lesser-known place, this place is not the largest of them all and it does not have a zillion products. It is specific to your gender, houses a few brands and certain unique products, which you select from. Now don’t you think this is a more approachable and logical shopping tactic that ultimately is of greater ease and more hassle-free?

How has been the response from your Whatsapp selling strategy? Do you think this trend is likely to be adopted by other eCommerce players?
The personal touch provided by our executives on Whatsapp has translated into a large number of orders being placed on chat. We feel that if the customer is more comfortable talking to a real person and placing the order there instead of a bright white screen, then why not?
Recently I have seen many companies where social media handles are being flooded with poor customer experience notes and comments. Unfortunately as you grow from a Small Medium Enterprise to Large Company, somewhere you are not able to handle customer experiences and there is a need for the Industry to pick up the trend of better before and after sales service.

What is the reason of having an exclusive product line with international brands only?
We as a company have three priorities: Unique Products, Super Fast Delivery and Quality That Satisfies. To fulfil these at the moment we are keepinga very exclusive product range.

Don’t you think having a mobile app is a must for eCommerce players? Do you have plans for the same in your pipeline?
I personally believe more than a Mobile App it is more important to make your mobile website superior. How many apps can normal people keep in their 16GB phones? So I don’t think it is a must but it is definitely good to have one. We have both the agendas in our pipeline. Every 6 months we change our desktop and mobile website completely to incorporate new technological advancements and definitely will be coming up with our Mobile App as well in the near future.

What potential do you see in tier II and III cities of the country for a platform like yours?
One thing fantastic about India is its courier reach. This has enabled us to reach small cities and towns where such products are not available. The potential is huge and we are slowly tapping it throughvarious mediums.

Talk to us about your expansion plans. Do you have plans to add more categories to your product line?
We have plans for all three. More categories, more products and more brands but keeping in mind our motto: which is to provide unique products to the Indian audience and we shall not deviate from that. As mentioned earlier we have plans to come up with our App in Mid-2016 and are expecting to expand our team as well to keep up with the growth in Sales.

As a startup, where do you see yourself 3-5 years down the line?
Presently we are slowly moving towards becoming a Small Medium Enterprise. So hopefully in 3-5 years we will be a Large Company and a go-to brand for all clothing and accessories specific shopping needs!

Shed some light on the investment front of Zumbasa.com. Are you looking to raise more funds?
Right now we are a privately invested company. However in the coming future we will be looking at raising funds from external sources.