"Run your online store in Rs 800 per month"

Integrating efficient payment providers and finding reliable logistics partners in India are bottlenecks in way of running an online store, asserts StoreHippo’s founder and CEO, Rajiv Kumar, whose SAAS based platform creates and launches online stores with a simple yet effective technology architecture.

In an exclusive interview with the Retailer Media, Kumar chalks out the challenges and apprehensions of the SMEs before going online and the immediacy with which some issues need firefighting.

Reading StoreHippo’s description is fun, you do almost everything to help businesses start their online channel, but in application this must be difficult. How difficult it is to take businesses online and what challenges do you face while doing that?

Of course, the journey is not so easy. StoreHippo is a cloud based platform based on latest technology. One of the main challenges was that most of our clientele could not differentiate between old and new technologies. Initially, it was difficult to convince the customers to adopt a cloud platform which resides in a shared or multi-tenant environment.

Some companies prefer to own software in totality rather than share it. They had difficulty understanding why we had a technical edge over others and thus we had to handhold some of the clients. Once the advantages are clear, then they are ready to adopt it.

Another challenge was to keep pace with the ever-evolving technology and develop a system for future growth. It took us a few iterations before we got it right. And today we are developing at a pace where we are providing promising m-commerce platforms to start online businesses.

To provide a complete service to our customers it is vital to integrate with payment providers who are efficient and provide safe and secure payment methods. It is a task to find suitable payment gateways. The services of the payment gateways need to be speedy and streamlined. Logistics services are still not streamlined in India and finding reliable logistics partners is never easy.

Our company also makes mobile apps for the online stores. Today we have innumerable types of mobile devices and making apps which are applicable for all types of devices is a challenge in itself.

Explain to us your business model.

StoreHippo is a SAAS based platform to create and launch online stores. Our key target customers are online retailers particularly SMEs and individual entrepreneurs. Our platform is designed to provide a simple yet effective interface for retailers to sell their products and services online.

Our business model provides complex services in a simplified manner. We grant our core offering of e-commerce platform as SAAS, at a competitive and affordable price to our customers. The clients give a monthly payment for subscription. There are many levels of pricing plans, with prices starting as low as Rs 800 per month; this is very convenient for the budding entrepreneurs.

Today, the platform has surged ahead to incorporate m-commerce and offers much-in-demand mobile apps and mobile sites for online stores. We offer the added benefits of marketplace integration and multivendor feature for online stores.

We have been able to achieve this by leveraging our expertise in technology and mobile e-commerce domain, and by spreading the cost of development of e-commerce across multiple customers.

The ‘Beyond E-Commerce’ capability of StoreHippo has made it a preferred choice for startups who do not want to be limited by only e-Commerce platforms.

What are the kinds of queries that you get before/after getting a retailer on board?

The people wish to know about the working of the SAAS based model and the subscription plans. Most of the enquiries are regarding integrations with payment providers and logistics partners as these two elements play a key role for success of any online store.

How are you different from other players in the space?

Our truly mobile sites and mobile apps are our USP. We offer mobile apps for Android and iOS based devices. StoreHippo has an advanced and true mobile architecture which is not offered by many in our arena and it works on the latest and fastest MEAN technology stack which ensures that the stores work in a fast and smooth manner. Our technology is advanced than many of our competitors.

How has been the response so far? Talk to us about the new innovations you may be introducing to make it a seamless experience for users.

The ecommerce and m-commerce sector is growing by leaps and bounds. The response has been good so far and we are continuously getting enquiries regarding creating online stores. We continuously try to improve and streamline our processes and plan to add more features and keep on making our admin more user friendly for the retailers. The retailers will find our platform an easy to use DIY platform.

It is projected that there will be around 175 million people shopping online by 2016; do you see that impacting your business? How?

It spells a growth trajectory for our business. As e-commerce is gaining traction by the day and the tax structure is also being streamlined, we expect StoreHippo to attain new heights. We will focus more on mobile apps as apps are the next big wave in this sector.                                                                                                                         

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