When Snapdeal-owned C2C (customer to customer) site Shopo.in shut shop in February, questions were raised on the viability of the business model and whether it will work in India.

However, there is one company that is betting heavily on this model and is witnessing a steady growth in its user (seller) base. It is also extending new features and services to its sellers for better conversion on its platform. C2C sites essentially allow sellers to directly sell to the consumer. Global major eBay was one of the biggest players in this segment. Launched in 2015, Kraftly, an e-commerce platform for small sellers, entrepreneurs, and artisans to sell their unique products online, has recently launched MySite, a personal and customised microsite for each sellers that will help the registered users to establish their online presence.

These websites will empower the small-scale sellers to run their own feature-rich website in one click using existing products on Kraftly.

Saahil Goel, CEO and Co-Founder, Kraftly, said, “With the increasing demand for online retail, a large number of small-scale sellers and homepreneurs are joining B2C or a C2C e-commerce platforms to sell their unique creations. However, even though these sellers establish a customer base through these platforms, they often get overshadowed and fail to create an identity for themselves.”

Social media sites

A recent report by Zinnov said that about two million homemakers did a business of worth $9 billion in 2016 by selling products on various social media sites, which means they do not have an access to have or have bandwidth to open a personal site.

In addition to a personal branding website, Kraftly is further backing up the sellers with its technology and expertise, securing the transactions via its proprietary checkout gateway with a 35 per cent commission rate.

“This is where we differ from other C2C sites. We also provide logistical support to the sellers,” he said adding that seller enablement in any commerce play isn't complete without offering the full stack - i.e. listing, discovery, payments and logistics.

Kraftly aims to achieve over 2 lakh sellers by the end of 2017, from the current 70,000 sellers. The company claims to have witnessed a 100 per cent growth in seller registrations in the last two months.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW