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Shopatplaces – Need your feedback on our venture

By Zuhaib Khan on 25 Comments / 6107 views

Dear All,

I am new to The Rodinhoods and have been following and reading posts here for more than a month now. Want to seek feedback for our startup from you all. Am sure your advice will help us improve our venture further.

The one main area in which we seek your advice is Marketing. Ideas for both online and offline marketing are welcome. So are the ways in which we can improve the site and the shopping experience of the customers. So, here is our story!

We have started an e-commerce firm called Shopatplaces (www.shopatplaces.com) which delivers authentic products from places famous for them at the doorstep of the customers.

You do not have to travel to Lucknow to possess authentic Chikankari apparel, to Kashmir for Pashmina shawls or to Hyderabad to get Pearl jewelry any longer.

We are trying to solve the problem of unavailability of such authentic products, lack of guarantee of their authenticity and the exorbitant pricing charged from customers when such products are actually available at retail outlets.

Also, we sell the products at a price which is lower than even the retail price of that product from the place we source them from. For instance, you can buy genuine leather belts from Kanpur at a price which is not even available in retail markets of Kanpur. We are able to do this as we eliminate the too-many leakages in the supply chain.

We launched the Beta version of our site in October, 2012 and have been received well by customers and have received free press coverage as this is the first time ever this concept of ‘Famous Places. Best Buys’ has been executed. Our value-add is that we deliver authentic products which are not to be found elsewhere with great pricing and at the convenience of the end-users.

The founding team is comprised of two, Sherfur and myself. Sherfur has worked in Cadburys (now Kraft Foods) in the Supply Chain department while I have worked in Investment Banking and Private Equity earlier.

Please let us know what is the first thought that comes to your mind on checking out our site and ways in which we can do marketing. Also, we are bootstrapping this venture from our own funds.

Looking forward to your replies!

Best Regards,

Zuhaib,

A young entrepreneur

Adding this snippet after the original post today (20th April, 2013)

Happy to tell you that Shopatplaces is on the cover page in the print edition of Outlook Money, which came out two days back. Thank you all for your great advice. Please keep poring in your knowledge and ways we can improve and market Shopatplaces.

***

UPDATE: JULY 25, 2015

Shopatplaces raises seed round from IAN!

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25 Comments

  1. Seems pretty cool.

  2. first of all Congratulations for your startup. It sounds really cool idea. “buy awesome products of awesome places”!! 🙂

  3. the biggest challenge is to build traffic onto your site…

    u need to do couponing, market on google ads, get your self featured many many times by many many blogs/ news / magazines….send many many emailer campaigns

    making the website is very easy…getting people on it is very difficult…and getting them to finally pay is then lesser difficult …

    what might work well for u in the short term is stocking your products with all the other retailers since they dont have this stock on their portals (so tie up with snap deal, flipkart, infibeam, etc) and pay them their sellers fee……it will get you started and build volumes….at the same time u will be marketing ur portal and will be building traffic….

    I run http://www.travellerkids.com, a startup which makes innovative educational toys and games for kids aged 6- 11yrs.

  4. Thanks Nirav. Do let us know any suggestions that come to your mind.

  5. Thanks Faizan!

    We have kept the tagline as ‘Famous Places. Best Buys.’. But the one you suggested sounds much more better 🙂

  6. Great nice one, and all the best for your venture…!!!!!!!

  7. Thanks Shitij!

    Really appreciate you taking out time and giving us advice.

    We do a few of the things you mentioned. For instance, we do give out coupons to coupon sites like coupondunia, couponzguru among others. We have not spent anything on marketing on google ads or email marketing till now. That’s one thing which we are starting with.

    A question for you: What worked for you in these two marketing activities?

    We are not yet sure if we want to list our products on other portals. We feel that we should focus on growing our site first, a business in which we have given 11 months of our life after leaving our jobs. Maybe we are too emotional here? 😛

    On whole, will have to think about it in detail as it has both pros and cons.

    Again, thanks a lot for your suggestions. Looking forward to more such advice from fellow Rodinhooders 🙂

    Best Regards,

  8. What you need to focus is on exclusivity.  This is not being communicated very well.  Strike that.  This is not being communicated at all.  

    My first impression was that it is another ecommerce jingalala prepping itself up for a train wreck. 🙂

    Don’t coupon.  In fact don’t even allow people to browse the products till they give you their email id.  Okay that maybe a bit too drastic 🙂 but you should explore that angle in any case.  That means punching up the visuals and the copy till you make them drool enough to want to get in.  

    Great concept.  Needs more work on presentation and positioning.  

  9. Thanks Alam 🙂

  10. Thanks for your reply, Abey.

    You have taken a refreshing look at the concept. We had toyed with the idea of making it an invite-based (making an account compulsory) model earlier. Decided against it at that time.

    However, we will look at it IN DETAIL again.

    You shall certainly see us working more on the presentation and positioning part.

    And I am going though your ‘train wreck’ post right now 🙂

    Thanks a lot again, sir!

  11. Its a tricky trade-off but if you are able to get the exclusivity beacon to light up in your prospects minds then you’ve won 90% of the battle.

  12. I know lots of people who would love this site – great idea.

    Immediate thoughts :

    1) Dont ask for my email before I even check out the site !

    2) Add a Tell A Friend for any item.  Also instead of Buy, have Gift as a button.

    3) Where is your Share on FB / Twitter link for people to share your site?

    4) Have a look at the Urban Ladder newsletter, Facebook page and website – really impressive.  They curate the best products on the homepage, rather than give you a list of all possible combinations.  Theirs is more ‘connoiseur” whereas your site looks more like a listing now?  It would be better to showcase what is great on the home page, and let me drill down by  cities later?

    5) Idea : tie-up with a Clear Trip or Ibibo and offer to power a “How was your trip” feedback mail to their customers on return flights.  You would have thumbnails of items from that city that they could buy, in a section called “Did you miss these ?”.  e.g. if I have flown return from Mumbai to Jaipur, my feedback mail would have items from Rajasthan listed.

    b) Go guerilla 🙂 and stalk airports after arrivals from cities you have items from.  Models / team wear items from that city and walk up with an iPad to people who have returned from their flight  (you can identify from their baggage tag).  

    Will standout from all those 150 touts selling rooms !

  13. THANKS a lot, Mahesh!

    Feedback understood for all 4 first points. Will ping you when you can see improvements.

    Loved your last two points, Sir 🙂 Will quickly execute.

    Please let us know if some other idea comes to your mind later on too.

    Kindest Regards,

    Zuhaib

    Btw, Shopatplaces was featured on the cover page in the print edition of Outlook Money which came out yesterday ( free PR never hurts – our view 🙂  ). Attaching a snapshot 🙂

  14. zuhaib,

    two things –

    i) mahesh’s (mk to most of us) advice always weighs in gold!

    ii) pls add the outlook money page cover photo as a part of your post – all of us need to see and feel proud!

  15. I think your business is about sourcing the best products from the best places and NOT running a portal. The portal is a way to achieve that.

    If you feel the same way, then you should stock at other portals, because

    1) it gives you visibility, I’m already going to a flipkart and looking for something & I’ll spot your brand/name there and may end up buying it. EVEN tho iv never heard of your portal. When I get the products, there is a tag/brochure which explains your .com

    2)they already have traffic and you will take time to build traffic…..and this process can be very frustrating for you (waiting to build traffic / low revenue), not fun for your suppliers (who are waiting for larger orders)

    I agree that you can spend this energy on the portal…..its a fair point…..

    email marketing/ facebook/ etc work when your reach is large (atleast 5-10k people) less than conversion metrics dont work that well

    google ads, i havnt used yet…but alot fo startups say are the primary driver of traffic in the early days

    also do correct SEO, it should be as much about your portal or your concepts as much as the products you stock…..because i wont be searching for interesting products from different cities or something…ill be searching for a chikan kurta and that should lead to your portal and that should tell me this is authentic…..#justsaying

    this idea had struck me a couple of years back,,,i just didnt know if id find enough inventory…good to see somebody build it and pull off a good job……

  16. Thanks, Asha.

    i) I was thinking more on lines of Platinum (with gold prices going down these days 😛 ). Yes, solid execution points. Will post here how our execution goes and learnings as we keep working on advice we are getting here.

    ii) Pardon me. Did not know how to do that exactly. Tried to but it became an attachment. Will try again.

  17. Check out the poster child of exclusive products sales https://www.onekingslane.com/

    This one is run by Ali Pincus the wife of Zynga founder Mark Pincus.  There were a few articles about her company and how they came up a while back.  You should read those to get some insights into the psychology of positioning luxury goods.

  18. Hi Zuhaib,

    Congratulations on your new venture!!

    Few points which you may consider :-

    1. Consider changing the color of the logo. Since the entire background is in white, the logo does not stand out.Think of some color or design which will remain in the consumer’s mind. So the next time I remember that color, I will think about your website:-)

    2. Try and get as much publicity as possible.Jitna FREE utna better!! Since you have been covered by Outlook traffic may  go up on your site.Many will visit out of curiosity. Try to capitalize on that make & the Offer section more visible.My understanding is we Indians love OFFERS!!

    3. Regularly update your activities, launches etc on your Facebook page. Give out a Contest on FB and hand out a free merchandise to the winner.

    4. Track your traffic everyday. See where and how much time do they spend on your site. This will help you to create strategies and execute for monetizing.

    5.Give some insight to customers like what are the top selling collections on your site, enable consumers to write a review, allow consumers to help you in adding new collections by encouraging their feedback.Keep the traffic engaged.

    Hope the above points help. All the Best!!

  19. Hi…

    In offline marketing what I can suggest is – 

    – Do some hoardings/ leaflet distribution in malls/ residential area…

    – Some Ads in Time-Out magazine, its worth.

    – Ask your customers to endorse you on social media…

    Hope it helps….

  20. Read a lot and saw how they are executing since your advice. Thanks, Sir!

  21. Thanks a lot for all five points!

    About Logo color – will discuss it tomorrow with the team. 🙂

    Best Regards,

  22. Happy to share this news with you all, about our first external fund raise:

    https://www.livemint.com/Companies/112QzA2iJ1aAmKYFg8SQLO/Shopatplaces-raises-seed-round-from-Indian-Angel-Network.html

  23. hey many many congrats zuhaib!! 

    this is super awesome! pls share the journey so far and the major learnings with all of us when you have a breather! 

    we’re in town on aug 22 – do come! we’d love to meet you 🙂

    https://www.therodinhoods.com/events/therodinhoods-delhi-open-house-in-gurgaon-august-22-2015

  24. Thanks a lot!

    Will do both. 🙂

  25. hey zuhaib – would you know any startups/entrepreneurs based in J&K?

    https://www.therodinhoods.com/forum/topics/what-are-some-startups-based-in-india-s-conflict-zones-j-k-north

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