It is a known fact that Parenting is expensive. It digs a big hole in parents’ pockets. Well, it did in ours. I am parent to a 4 year old. Irrespective of the earning levels, more is always less when kids are around. You want to treat your child with all the expensive things in the world. To add to this cost, there is the menace of increasing taxes and hiked family-vacation fares. Amidst all these uprising costs, I encountered a woman who couldn’t buy a pram for her lovely baby. And it all started then!
How come parenting has become so un-affordable & imprudent at the same time?
This question remained with me as I started working on a platform to make Parenting Priceless!
Being a techie expert, my husband designed the outlay software and I managed everything else from curation to content and operations. Having completed my B.Tech from IIT Delhi and with 8 years of operations experience with various petroleum industry giants, I adopted SecondCry as my second baby and so was born India’s first parent-only re-commerce platform for pre-loved kid’s stuff!
What are we trying to do differently and how?
It was tough to enable a paradigm shift in parenting by leveraging artificial intelligence. Until now, there was only e-commerce, but emergence and absorption of re-commerce in the Indian parent segment called for massive transformational drives. The existing re-commerce platforms have a diverse audience and hence they could not implement a good search & recommendation engines. Moreover, there is no relationship built with the buyer or seller such that we could do more transactions in future since our kids were growing up together.
SecondCry, today is an interlinked hub of more than 20,000 parents who Sell, Buy, Swap, Rent and Donate anything about kids. What’s new? Ours is an exclusive venture for parents. The site has been carefully designed to ensure parents have a hassle-free shopping experience. It is a one-stop destination which offers anything and everything about kids. Logistic solution across country gives parents the option to choose from variety of products put up for sale by other parents. Our map functionality allows users to choose a product near them; however, we ship across India!
A thumping response from all parents across India, especially Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Chennai boosted my confidence and we began our journey of making their experience better and better. As every start-up has it’s financial laggards, Secondcry too has it. Nonetheless, my team is relentlessly working to lock deals with parenting services like activity centers, preschools & maternity hospitals to use our platform for advertisements.
What else you could be a part of?
Apart from everything else, SecondCry comprehended it’s social responsibility quite early. Our brand is essentially about passing down stuff so that someone else, somewhere, could put it to its best use. And hence, we at Secondcry make generous contributions at various child-centric NGOs by organizing collection drives for them. We have collaborations with the Sparsh Foundation, Child Relief and We & few other local NGOs to receive donations given by our parents. Recently, we collected more than 200 clothes across Bangalore for kids & soon we will run our book collection drive post the exam season.
So, be a prudent & thrifty parent like me! Sell what your kid is not using anymore and look for a pre-loved stuff instead of new, at Secondcry.com! Happy Priceless Parenting!
Amit Shroff
Hi Anjali,
The concept is superb and would definitely help others. Additionally it would help parents make the best use of products no longer needed or someone looking for product which is beyond his reach. I have reviewed your website and have following suggestions.
1. You shouldn’t allow traders to upload products – this listing looked as if posted by a trader, since If I sell something as parent, I would not have these information – https://secondcry.com/en/listings/1007-luv-lap-star-shine-stroller-cum-pram-red-and-black-18135
2. Validate the Price – Pram Starts at 2000 and goes upto 10,000 and more, then you will have to make sure the users are not trying to sell the product at same price they bought it, though there is no harm doing so, but then it would defeat the purpose of the website.
3. Let user’s buyer/seller select their geography for better mapping of the products.
4. Product Picture – Try reviewing all post, ask user to post best possible picture and avoid OLX , blurred pictures.
5. Avoid Damaged Product – Avoid damaged product – make sure that people post working condition products, products like these should be avoided – https://secondcry.com/en/listings/945-centy-bus
Things you could include on your store :
1. Parenting Tips for New & Existing Parents
2. List of Day Care in various cities
3. UGC – Encourage parents like you to share their experience and tips
Regards,
Amit
9811122212
Anjali Goyal
Thanks a lot Amit for spending time on the website. Your suggestions are valuable and in fact all are under implementation 🙂
Amit Shroff
Welcome Anjali.. and Best of Luck for your venture!!
Deepak Doddamani
Hi Anjali,
It’s great that you are doing CSR at such early stage of StartUp. Congratulations !
All the best to Team SecondCry. Kudos !