Saahil Goel, co-founder & ceo, Kraftly
We always rush to large retailers such as Croma or Reliance Digital for electronic accessories but if you are looking for something rare and unique you might want to try the customer-to-customer (C2C) route. Kraftly, a C2C e-commerce platform, serves as a destination for small-sized businesses selling lifestyle goods such as sunglasses, watches, jewellery items, electronic accessories, etc. Launched under BigFoot Retail Solutions in August 2015, Kraftly calls itself a tech enabler and an aggregator for small businesses, helping them set up their business on the online platform. Other companies in the space include eBay, Shopify, and Snapdeal’s Shopo which had to close down earlier this year. Kraftly runs as a commerce platform for the unstructured and unbranded market and features about 5 million unique listings. The price point for the goods sold on this platform is Rs 650-700. “Instead of creating a social media page where businesses can have challenges such as scaling up and logistics, we help the seller with all the overheads. We build a mobile business for the small sellers, which offers easy on-boarding, demand generation, integration on social media, etc,” said Saahil Goel, co-founder and CEO of Kraftly.
The company earns revenue from the commission paid by sellers for every sale and it goes as high as 35% based on the marketing mix the seller has opted for. “Almost 50% of the revenue is coming from our marketing tools which include– shipping and website management and we will always optimise our business in a way to make 25-30% commission,” he added. Krafly’s revenue generation model also includes a transactional fee of Rs 15-35 per sale but it imposes no onboarding fee. Goel pegged the monthly run-rate of the company at $220,000-250,000 as of September 2017, that translates into annual revenue of $ 3-3.5 million and it expect to achieve revenue of $ 5 million by FY18. Out of the 80,000-plus sellers under its fold, Kraftly has about 15,000 as paying partners for its marketing tools. According to Goel, the product category at Kraftly ensures high margins to the tune of 25% on every order and in most cases the shipping fee is borne by the buyer.
The company is in talks with media partners such as Facebook and Google to create a pipeline for sellers. The service is expected to be live in 3-6 months. Kraftly will also be launching is own ad network on its platform for bigger sellers. In 2012, BigFoot Retail Solutions mopped up $250,000 from 5ideas and 500 Startups and $1.25 million in 2014 from Nirvana Venture Advisors and Beenos. In 2016, BigFoot Retail Solutions closed a funding of $8 million in two tranches—$6 million in January and $2 million in March led by Bertelsmann India Investments, Singapore-based Beenext and a Japanese investor. Existing investors such as Nirvana Digital India Fund, Nirvana Digital Investment Holding Co and 500 Startups also participated in the funding.
