Charkas, what is the biggest survival tip today? Change that has been able to change is what has survived. We have all seen this. We kept changing with the digital age. We saw the change of UPI, e-commerce, online banking. But there is a community that has not been able to change with this digital age. We are talking about more than 2 crore shopkeepers. This is the kirana store, stationery store, electronics store and many such stores that do 25% of India's GDP, i.e., business of 64 lakh crore. Now think about it, this is such a big business. Has any of us ever bought anything from them online? No. Why? There are two reasons. One reason is that these sellers cannot sell on online platforms because commissions are very high. They cannot afford it. And they do not have the means to create their own cheap website and do delivery. And this is the solution that brings Eco Life for these sellers. Eco Life is the digital address of shops.
I am Alok, hello Sharks, I am
I am Neeta and we are the founders of Eco Life.
Eco Live is a platform where the kirana seller, medicine seller, stationery seller, electronics goods seller and many other sellers can create their own website and sell their products online. Not only that, KCO helps its sellers with local delivery. If a seller orders or gets delivery from KCO's online shop, they don't have to pay any commission. Very soon, we are going to make all our sellers' products live on the Government of India's ONDC platform. From which those sellers will start getting orders from lakhs and crores of customers. We started the seller website only two months ago. More than a thousand sellers have already joined us. Our goal is to make every local shop an online Eco Shop. Our ask is 1 crore for 1% equity. Come on, let's together make 2 crore shopkeepers a part of Digital India.
KCO actually means happy in Japanese.
Oh, what is the inspiration for this business? When did you get this idea and why?
When the lockdown happened in 2020 and all the small shops saw their business decrease. Their shops were closed and people's habits started changing towards online. Those who never bought online were also forced to go online. Then we thought that it is necessary to create a solution for this big problem. We have to bring these small shops online somehow so that in the long term they can retain their existing customers and also grow their business further.
You thought, I mean, it's been 4 years, from Jio to Dukaan, Udaan, everyone has been working very hard. So how can you say that you thought during COVID?
They were doing cataloging from the beginning and it was failing. Small shopkeepers, if you go on day one and tell them to put all their SKUs online and catalog, that was a problem for them. So we started with a live shopping solution. In fact, we have applied for a patent for that and the patent was recently awarded to us. Where the shopkeeper can take orders one-on-one with his customer via video call or audio call and process the order on that live call. The buyer gets a notification and a rider comes to the seller. He picks up and delivers. More than 10% of each shop's business runs through home delivery. And they run their business on phone, WhatsApp like that. And this is all informal. Because the order is written on a paper slip or somewhere in a phone message. No record remains. Now all this gives him MIS at a single place: which orders are coming, and customers, instead of reaching out to the seller in different ways, can reach the seller.
But all these other platforms are doing this. The only thing they are not doing is live video. And that is because many people tried video commerce in India to replicate China, but it hasn't worked in India yet because consumers themselves don't want to come on video.
Correct. So the problem is that one-to-many live commerce has not worked. However, our solution was a bit different. The shopkeeper's existing customer tells him to use this solution instead of phone and WhatsApp.
But this solution is not finding the problem. This problem doesn't seem to be getting solved. Can you clarify a bit?
Kirana stores are your clients? Yes. What exactly do you sell to them and what will they pay you for?
See the demo, I will show you the demo, you will understand sir.
So this is our cataloging solution. When a seller logs in, he can onboard with his basic details in 5 minutes. We have an admin team that approves from the backend. Once approved, he can start uploading his catalog. So this is a typical website built like this. On average, how many SKUs do they load? So we launched this website only about 2 months ago and currently sellers are uploading 50 to 100 fast-moving SKUs on our platform. But generally 3-4000 SKUs. Yes. So this is a typical checkout process. The customer can put his address, pay by COD or online, and checkout from here.
Where is the live? You don't want to show the live. One-to-one calling is actually evolving in this product.
So currently we are pushing all sellers to cataloging. Because without cataloging, their products won't be visible on ONDC. Live connectivity on ONDC as of today. ONDC means Open Network for Digital Commerce. Just like the Government of India launched UPI to promote digital payments, similarly they launched ONDC for digital commerce. This will encourage shopkeepers to sell their goods and services online.
But I have a fundamental problem. Yes. That this business is not needed.
So the bigger picture that is evolving, of course, is that ONDC at least these are official figures that over the next two to three years, 80 billion dollars worth of business on ONDC. So basically your main point is to put sellers on ONDC. Yes. So that they will get discovery and extra business. So with one listing, both their tasks will be done. Their website will also be built where they can push existing customers, and from ONDC they will also get discovery where they can get new customers.
I don't understand what you are giving differently compared to those people who are much bigger than you. In such competitive intensity, how will you carve your place?
Correct. So in early days, we are getting good traction. Every shop we approach wants to join us.
Of course, because you don't charge anything.
But as soon as ONDC starts, we will start charging 5% commission. And that's just a matter of a few days.
This business, look, any shopkeeper wants to come to a platform. It takes a lot of work for him. He has to work outside his routine. 100 companies have already come to any shopkeeper.
Yes. Currently, the problem is also that even if a new company goes to them, they feel hopelessness, 'one more has come'. Their biggest question is, 'How will you bring me extra customers?' If you can increase their business by 20%, 30%, 40%, then you will crack it, go viral, and it will happen. But the point is that no one has even done 5% of their business till date.
We have done the same thing with Zomato in restaurants. We took a particular vertical and did it in that. Because there is no inventory.
And since there is no inventory, fulfillment rate is higher.
In retail, whenever you plug such a platform, your fulfillment rate is there. Fulfillment rate means customer ordered goods. How many times did the goods actually reach him?
It is 70%. Linket used to do the same earlier, right? It used to take from shops.
We have all this, I mean, again, this is everyone's dream. I also started from here in childhood, gave up here, and then I said, let me do restaurants.
And you gave up because of fulfillment rate and experience.
Experience. There is no customer experience.
Zomato's current failure rate. Failure rate is that when I ordered, how many times did it not reach home? That is 0.33%.
So on a daily basis, I lost 3% of customers.
Which means on a monthly basis, I lost 10% of customers.
Very high churn. And your point is that in this, it is very high. In this, it is 30%.
If our 3% failure rate, let's say 4%, our business would be finished in a month. Down to zero.
