Hello readers, in this post we present you with the excerpts of a detailed discussion with Mukund Malagi – Co-Founder, ND Commerce.
ND Commerce helps brands in building and operating online stores, and positioned as a Brand E-Channel Specialist. The venture realised the opportunity back in 2011-2012 to create a robust ecosystem for brands to embrace direct selling channel, primarily ecommerce, mobile commerce and telecommerce.
Brands are in the business of ‘building consumer brands’ that delivery on ‘consumer needs’ and their retailing is B2B2C, where they largely sell to distributors who sell to retailers who sell to the final consumer. However, their communication is strictly B2C. The founding team’s understanding was that there would come a time where brands would move from B2B2C and engage in direct selling to the customer. Ecommerce lends perfectly well in allowing brands to embrace direct selling, building consumer database which in result helps in consumer insights, repeat purchase and CRM.
(Image: Team ND Commerce- Mukund, Rohit, Disha, Kaushik, Nagesh, Manoj and Ranjit)
ND Commerce’s Eureka moment came when team realised that Modern Trade (Large format retailing), which was an innovation way back in 2000, had become quite mainstream and now had started to contribute significantly to the overall brand’s sales, to the extent that for some brands and categories, its as high as 10-12%. The team believes, ecommerce retailing will become as much big in the years to come. Couple of categories of businesses like mobile phones & apparel have already breached those levels.
FAST FACTS
| Portal URL | www.ndcommerce.in |
| Launch Year | 2011 |
| Business Vertical | Ecommerce retailing / Omni Channel retailing |
| Headquaters | Mumbai |
| Founders Name | Ajay Miglani, Mukund Malagi, Ranjit Pai |
| Number of employees | 60 |
| Current Traction | 25 leading international & Indian brands |
Robust & Scalable e-Commerce Ecosystem
In the ever evolving digital age, ecommerce as a retailing channel is in its nascent stage with a lot of challenges. ND Commerce has built a robust & scalable ecommerce ecosystem covering technology, operations, analytics, customer service, logistics and demand generation for brands who want to be in the forefront of offering direct to customer options. ND Commerce is a ready-to-use suite of online retailing services with flexibility for brands to completely outsource while they can focus on building their brand. ND Commerce’s key offerings are :
- One stop brand e-channel, offering end to end solutions
- Demand generation support & solution
- High level of store management & analytics
Monetization Model
ND Commerce is dependent by and large of ‘retailing margin commission’ as that’s the primary offering of the company. However, their clients use several other services and they do have revenues coming in from non-retailing support as well.
Currently, the company is serving more than 25 leading international & Indian brands of high repute. These clients are from various categories of business such as Fashion, Mobile, Electronics, Lifestyle, Footwear, Accessories, Digital download products, Ergonomic, Intimate wear and more.
Addition to this, Ndcommerce is a strategic India partner to DIGITAL RIVER, a leading global provider of Commerce-as-a-Service solutions, to represent their global brands in India.
Challenges & Opportunities
Challenges in the industry – There are several challenges in the market, and the biggest one is the lack of whole hearted embrace of the ecommerce channel. Right now brands are seeing it as a tool & technique to get sales, it can be much more strategic, superior and differentiated channel of direct sales to the customer.
The Digital or Web influence on the brands still remains Facebook likes, Instagram & twitter followers. Brands need to look and go beyond these short term gains of ‘likes and followers’ and look for ‘building profitable & long term transactions’.
The opportunity arising from the above challenges is huge. Imagine some portion of the digital influence moves towards more serious business like transactions and selling. That opportunity is massive and the day is not far that brands and marketers focus will migrate from engagement to transactions.
Venture’s Future Plans for Expansion?
The venture is self-funded, running the business profitably and take well thought out calculated risks.
There are several levers of growth for a new and budding industry. Some of them that interests the venture as a strategic way forward is :
- Expand within India to traditional and non-traditional brands
- Expand in overseas markets where demand can be generated
- Cross border ecommerce
- India Entry ecommerce for brands looking to enter India
- Omni Channel – O2O selling
- Online Key opinion leader marketing
How NDcommerce is making its space in the industry?
“The size of the industry is quite mammoth. Currently, not more than 70-80 brands have their own online brand stores and that number can go up substantially in the coming 3-5 years, to the tune of 500. So we are talking about 5X growth in terms of embracing this channel. In terms of volume of business, we are just scratching the surface of the opportunity, as the brands evolve their online channel, merchandising & exclusivity will drive higher acceptance and sales of the online channel. We believe in the next 3-5 years, online channel will see the same growth trajectory as modern trade channel, and with lesser challenges than offline, it may exceed expectations. To deliver on this huge opportunity, brands are going to look for specialists in helping them adopt, adapt and build long term profitable e-channel business.” – Mukund Malagi – Co-Founder
ND Commerce is also helping its brand partners in the ever evolving retailing space like Omni Channel, Mobile commerce & Assisted commerce. Assisted commerce in form of live chat, consultative call center, video call center and augmented reality. For lack of physical selling, these tools and techniques will help brands get closer to the customer and bridge the gap that exists in the online space.
ND Commerce, with its repertoire of services & body of work, has become the de-facto go-to-market ecommerce solutions provider for any brand or marketer that wants to embrace the new age way of selling to customers.
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e-Commerce, Startup, Technology, Mobile, Digital India, Internet Retail, Social Media 