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The Impact of Shark Tank India on the Startup Ecosystem

StartupTalkyStartupTalky · 1y ago
The Impact of Shark Tank India on the Startup Ecosystem
Medial

Shark Tank India, a reality TV show, has had a significant impact on India's startup ecosystem. The show provides a platform for entrepreneurs to showcase their innovative ideas, seek investments, and gain exposure to a wide audience. It has helped change the mindset of the Indian middle class towards entrepreneurship and has increased media visibility for startups. The show has also facilitated secure investments from experienced investors and has contributed to the democratization of funding. It has had a positive influence on the startup culture in India and has connected entrepreneurs with new contacts and networks. However, the credibility of the show has been questioned, and there have been instances of participants not receiving promised investments. The long-term impact of Shark Tank India on the startup ecosystem will depend on several factors, including the success stories that emerge from the show and the overall economic climate in the country.

Return Prime aims to make return management seamless for brands

EntrackrEntrackr · 1y ago
Return Prime aims to make return management seamless for brands
Medial

Bengaluru-based Return Prime provides a customer return platform which includes a business dashboard for managing returns. The company aims to make it easier for brands, specially smaller ones, to use its services through a plug-and-play model. Beyond basic returns, brands can use the Return Prime platform for automating return logistics, refunds, replacements, and more. We spoke to founder and CEO Shashwat Swaroop to learn more about Return Prime, what distinguishes it from the competition and the roadmap ahead. Here are the edited excerpts: How did you come up with this idea? I have always been extremely passionate about creating something and solving problems, building my brand which helped other people solve their challenges was always something that I intended to do. Once an eCommerce brand came to me with their return management nightmare. They were doing everything manually and it was too cumbersome. It was not only time-consuming but was impacting their customer experience too. Customers were used to a certain speed, standards, and experience, and to ensure their shoppers wouldn’t leave them, they needed a solution to cater to this. But building a whole software program was just out of reach – both financially and in terms of time! I then began researching, and my study confirmed what I suspected – there was a massive gap in the market for managing returns. Existing solutions were few and far between, and mostly focused on the US. We saw a chance to empower brands worldwide to make return management extremely seamless, one that ensures their GMV losses are minimized while customer experience is maximized, that’s what led to the birth of Return Prime. Please help understand how you generate revenues. The pricing models are quite fair and simple. This was one of the most important things for us to simplify. When we started building Return Prime, we were simplifying the complicated experience of returns for both brands and their customers so keeping everything around Return Prime simple was important. The pricing model is just based on the scale of business which is how many returns they do in a given month. One can start with the Free Forever plan if they are a small brand and pay nothing forever. They only have to choose a paid plan when they start to grow. As you grow, you can choose one of our Grow plans which starts at $9.99 a month. What are the key challenges in the industry that have not been addressed yet? And how do you plan to address this? We are working to solve the way businesses see returns. The correct solution is not to focus on reducing the returns but on figuring out how you can turn your returns into a revenue-making opportunity. Returns are simply inevitable so the merit is not in reducing it by another few per cent but in converting the majority of it into additional revenue. We are constantly working on it and on average, our brands see an ROI of 183%+ with Return Prime, which is on the cost they pay for Return Prime every month. This is going up constantly with our focused effort to turn returns into revenue. How has your startup performed since its inception? Please share statistics. We have been growing from day 1, completely bootstrapped. We grew 150% YoY in the last 3 years and this is not just India, across the globe. We serve merchants in 100+ countries today and our market share across these countries continues to increase every year. In the last 3 years, we have processed over 12 million returns for brands and customers globally. What are your short-term and long-term goals in terms of product and business expansion and diversification? From a product expansion point of view, we are focused on increasing the ROI for our brands as we believe in keeping strong fundamentals. While we do this, we will continue to increase our market share across other regions as well along with India. As consumer behaviour evolves, we are also trying to help brands offer Omnichannel returns experiences to their customers making it super easy and delightful for them. This not only helps the customer but also increases the repeat purchase and LTV for brands as this customer will trust them even more. On the other hand, we are also trying to help bigger brands solve more complex operational problems and policies which now with Return Prime is just a matter of click. We will continue to simplify complexities as we grow along with brands. In terms of geographical expansion, we will go deeper into some of the regions and increase our market share while we continue to turn returns into revenue for the rest of the world.

XOBOX aims to tackle residential last-mile delivery hurdles

EntrackrEntrackr · 1y ago
XOBOX aims to tackle residential last-mile delivery hurdles
Medial

Last-mile delivery hasn’t been perfect. Not that the likes of Dunzos of this world haven’t tried to address this. Recently, we saw Zomato experimenting with last-mile delivery through a unique concept of ‘walkers’ for corporate parks. Bengaluru-based XOBOX is one of the few startups that is trying to fix the last-mile delivery challenges especially for people living in urban areas. The company handles packages for residents in apartment complexes. Some of the features are securing the packages in smart lockers and dropping them to customers’ doorstep when they are back to their homes, and home delivery of essential items. We spoke to XOBOX founder and CEO Kiran Shivappa about his startup, what distinguishes it from the competition and the roadmap ahead. Here are the edited excerpts: How did you come up with this idea? I live in an apartment complex and even before the Covid deliveries were left scattered in front of the door and stray cats use to destroy especially milk packet which cause everyone to talk about it hours in community Whatsapp group, this made me think to find/adopt a solution to secure the deliveries when residents not able to receive it or may be they are not around. How does the platform work? Please help simplify the process. When we started the service, we started taking the request from residents to handle their packages and we coordinated with delivery guys to take the package, pay them if it is a COD [Cash on Delivery], and secure them in the locker until they come back, then we deliver it to their doorstep. We went one step ahead and made a contract with 3PL [Third-party logistics] and ecommerce companies to take every delivery coming to the society and our dedicated resources would hand them over to the residents, if the resident is not available then secure the package in the locker and hand it over once they come back. What are the key challenges in the industry that have not been addressed yet? And how do you plan to address them? Ecommerce companies have tried many solutions to optimize the last leg of the delivery process and achieved the Kirana model also, but they never got a chance to be inside the society exclusively and take care of the deliveries and achieve the customer delight to bring the most convenience to them in their package receiving time. We have dedicated resources inside each society to carefully handle the package and interact with residents and elderly people and become familiar to them so they feel comfortable to receive us at the doorstep at any time and feel secured as well. Industry major players tried to introduce the lockers but these lockers operate as a complete unmanned and fully automated, for this reason the adaptation was a big challenge and education was also a challenge. We adopted a 70/30 model where, way the lockers were built, operated and how people would feel easy to adopt this because the “30” percentage is the resources we introduced along with “70” percentage technology, our dedicated resource will work with all stake holders in the gated community to educate and make every one understand how to use the service. What are your short-term and long term goals in terms of product and business expansion and diversification? In the short term, we are looking to expand the service to 35 more gated communities in Bengaluru in 2nd and 3rd quarters of 2024 and then go to other cities. As far as long-term plans go, we are going to sign contracts with major ecommerce and 3PL companies to increase the volume in each society and serve the needs of elderly population in the community. We would want to reach 700-1000 gated communities and generate 150-180 cr annually.

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