Every single one of us wants change, wants the country and more importantly the human race to progress. Poverty to disappear, improvement in living conditions, education to improve and be readily available. Very few of us seem to have the answer to the ever important HOW?
We all know what needs to change, none of us know how. Very few of us are sure of what we can do to drive that change. Hopefully we at theResPage can help answer that question.
It happens so often that even though we have the will to help and contribute, some of us don’t have the monetary resources, some of us don’t have the time and some of us don’t know how/where to contribute. But all of us SHOP don’t we 😉
What if every time you shopped at your favourite Online Store say a Flipkart or a Jabong, a small part of your spend is donated to a charity you CHOOSE. You don’t pay a penny extra and you contribute doing something you would anyways do- SHOP.
This is what we have come up with- www.therespage.com (the Responsible Homepage). You just have to click on “Shop and Contribute” to get started. You can then click on the NGO/Social Cause you wish to select and finally click on any of our partner shops, you are redirected and you shop as usual. Once you have made a purchase we receive a small commission from the Partner store that we donate.
Currently our partners include Flipkart/Jabong/Yatra/Domino’s/Freecharge among others. So you can help every time you buy a book or a flight ticket or even order a pizza or get a phone recharge
Just as an example Nanhi Kali (one of our NGO partners) requires Rs. 200 per month to teach a girl child. One Flight Ticket booking or a purchase on Myntra/FoodPanda can raise this amount; yes one flight booking through us can send a girl child to school for a month.
We launched on the 1st of April and in 20 days have raised above Rs. 1,600/-, with more than Rs. 20,000 of combined shopping through us. This is just the beginning, with the Indian e-commerce market touching $14 billion we truly believe a lot of difference can be made through this.
We hope a time comes when India shops through www.therespage.com. We are designed as a Homepage so that you never forget making an impact is so easy. We give you a very simple uncluttered Home with your favourite Google Search and links to your favourite sites.
We will incrementally better both- Your HomePage experience and simplify your shopping experience so that it makes more sense to shop through us.
Product Development and getting the idea across to people are the next challenges; we hope you guys can help us in that. Spread the word if you like what we are doing. You can also find us on FACEBOOK and/or follow us on TWITTER.
It never really was simpler and now no one really has an excuse of not contributing 😉
Keep Shopping.. Keep Contributing!!!
Sanchita Dutta
its an awesome idea. v workable. challenge for you though would be to keep the earnings and its redistribution as transparent and accessible as possible to maintain n build the confidence and the business. though one good idea would be to bring more and more e-com sites into the fold, even if they are small or have just started. never know one of them might get v successful in future and you would have the company in liaison with you at attractive terms..
but really good.. hope it sustains
Akhil Suhag
Thanks Sanchita.
We really will strive to be transparent about all our process and will make our monthly reports public. We are also open to tie-ups with as many e-com’s as possible. It only means more options for our users.
We are glad you like the idea. We also hope you have us as your homepage 😉
Please do spread it in your circle. Really appreciate your comment !!
Akhil Suhag
It would be great if we could get some product/design and marketing advice/opinions from this esteemed community!!
Ankit Dutt
I am working on the marketing front of theResPage. While working on different avenues on social media I would seek your advice on how to go about handling our twitter account?
What I feel is that we can build a lot of P.R. as well using twitter but am a bit confused on how to go about it?
Surabhi
Thanks for sharing I will think about and will contribute as much as I can.
Bharat Agrawal
I think this is a very nice idea….This has got a huge potential. With the increase in eshopping in India..i think this idea has got huge potential.
Akhil Suhag
Thanks Bharat.. do help us by spreading the word in your network. We need all the help we can get!
Akhil Suhag
We just got covered on YourStory.in. Here is the link to the post: https://yourstory.in/2013/05/want-to-shop-responsibly-log-on-to-therespage/
And here is the post itself !!
Want to shop responsibly? Log on to TheResPage
The flourishing eCommerce industry in India has something in it for all concerned parties. Competitive prices, multiple choices and convenience for the shoppers, a great market for the retailers, booming investment opportunities for the funds and a good buck for associated service providers. TheResPage, which has recently stepped into this space, has gone out-of-the-box by including a social angle to online shopping.
Founded by Ankit Dutt, Akhil Suhag, Nishant Baghel and Akshay Suhag, TheResPage was launched in April 2013, to make ‘free’ contributions to social causes, whilst engaging in online retail.
We spoke to co-founder Akhil Suhag about their motivation to startup, their passion for social causes and their ambition to make a living out of it.
Marrying entrepreneurship and a social cause
Akhil’s interest in online businesses, his belief of ‘internet being a really powerful medium’ and his desire to marry entrepreneurship and social causes motivated him to startup. But it was the e-commerce boom catching Akhil’s attention, that brought the pieces of the puzzle together.
“The idea to use the e-commerce buzz to make donations free, came to us a couple months ago. We thought this would be a unique advertisement for the online stores, which so far have been relying on the usual methods of advertisements, which are unable to ‘assure’ them of any sales” says Akhil, of the crux of the business. The opportunity to ‘donate’ while shopping, particularly since it does not cost anything to the customers, Akhil says, would be a good reason for many to shop.
How does it work?
The process is simple — log on to their website, choose from the list of NGO’s you wish to support, select the retail site you wish to shop on. You are redirected to the homepage of your chosen e-store, where, its business as usual. The navigation which adds a few extra clicks to the shopping experience, does not charge the customers for the donation (which also means that the product price remains the same when you choose to navigate your purchase through TheResPage). The business generates money out of commissions that the retail websites pay (at varying rates) for any purchase generated through TheResPage. The company retains a part of the commission and 80% of the money generated, is passed on to the NGO’s. Speaking of the business model, which is explicitly set out on their website, Akhil says, “transparency is key in what we are doing. We need people to trust us. Only then will they use our platform”.
Since the launch, the website has already partnered with 20 retail sites including Flipkart, MakyMyTrip, Infibeam and Jabong. Currently, TheResPage allows contributions to three NGO’s, though Akhil says, they are looking at adding to that list soon.
Realistic expectations
The obvious challenge for the company is to generate awareness of their website and increase traffic. Akhil says, this problem manifests in two ways, “even though using our website adds nothing to the cost, it is an extra step. People are impatient and also, until the trend catches on, we are worried people may simply forget to pass through our site”. The team is engaging in extensive online and offline marketing, with offline campaigns creating awareness about several social causes, which they hope will bring attention to their business. “To start with, we are also partnering with known NGO’s, who are using their own network and social media presence to create awareness about us”, says Akhil. The strategy is to try and get people to adopt TheResPage as their ‘homepage’.
While the team is really optimistic and ambitious of their venture, they are realistic about their expectations from it. “Social impact is our focus. That is what we will measure our success with, not what the business generates for us”, says Akhil.
For a young team and their maiden venture (while Akhil and Nishant, both computer engineers from Manipal Institute of Technology have work experience under their belt, Akshay and Ankit, will be graduating soon from NIT, Allahabad and IMT Ghaziabad respectively), TheResPage is dreaming big and doing it the ‘right way’. How did the values outweigh the commercials, we ask? “We didn’t over-think the challenges, which often results in manufacturing problems that does not exist, and it is impossible to get past something that doesn’t really exist”, says Akhil, of their ‘week long project’ which they have managed to take online in a month.
Akhil Suhag
1) No we did not calculate CAC’s, we did not sit down for long discussions for a week to calculate viability. We did not put together a business plan. We had something in our head and we put it in place. We jumped and started building the parachute on the way down.
I know that’s not pragmatic, but why not try and fail than just fail on paper and never try. And what defines failure. In a month we have raised 5k, which is enough to provide education to a girl child for 2 years. We would want to do so much more, but for us even this is a success.
If we do the numbers we know it is practically impossible for us to make money out of this. And we are not blind or stupid enough not to recognize that, but we still pursue it. Motivations are different for different people- maybe ours is not money.
I know you will point out, then why do we keep the 20%. Well to make it as viable as possible. We are recent grads with no savings/funding, even a single rupee is a rupee that keeps us running.
2) Have you considered it to be a “chain” rather than a cocktail? Why can’t a Social Venture be sustainable and profitable? And since you yourself pointed out that this venture will never be profitable according to your analysis this question doesn’t even arise.
I would like to reorder what you have mentioned and add the driving reason INTENT-CHARITY-COMMISSION-DONATION-CHANGE. This venture was never meant to be profitable or get branded as something. The INTENT was helping a cause and so it would always b
3) Yes they can. There is nothing stopping them. But then what business doesn’t have competitive challenges. A big player may any day decide to enter any field. I would mention the INTENT again, to help a cause. We will not stop trying to do something just for the fear of WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN. Because then we will never do anything.. will we?
4) I agree. But a lot of smaller ones don’t. The idea behind selecting BIG NGO’s is to get traction through their networks, so that we can later start rotating them. There are a lot of smaller ones doing excellent work and our aim is to support them in the longer run. We will soon democratize the process of what NGO’s we have on our page.
5) If channeling funds to the socially weaker sections is not a problem, then I do not know what is. Maybe we are too naïve, or maybe we were not able to illustrate to you our long term objectives or product development plans. Who would have thought one day an industry will pop up where people will pay and support random projects around the world, but we still did manage an Indiegogo or Kickstarter. You talk about customer costs for shopping, what about customer costs of paying and getting no material value in return. No one knows what works, and we are no ones to stop someone from trying. If crowd funding worked, then we are making crowd funding free, why will that not. Think about it.
Keep trying. The fun is not in the destination, it’s in the journey and we are loving ours.
Cheers!
Akhil Suhag
Sometimes it’s about doing your bit and not about “dhandha”. I am sure you believe in social responsibility and doing your bit.