Shop InOnIt is started by two beautiful young girls Meghna and Namrata . They studied in Wharton
School, worked few years in US and came back to India to start something on ecommerce.
To cover their story and to know more
about ShopInOnIt , we had a talk with them to know more about their plans about
Shop InOnIT.
- We have a very careful selection of products and designers that we house. We make sure that the type of product will resonate well with our audience and the quality will satisfy them.
- We have a very streamlined customer service process. Customers can email us at any time and we aim to respond within 24 hours. Also we are in touch with the customer at every step of the order, from order placement to dispatch to delivery
Why did you folks
quit your lucrative high paying jobs and venture into ecommerce?
Meghna Mittal and I met at the Wharton School. We both
graduated in 2006 with a degree in Economics and continued to work in New York
for a few years. Meghna worked for Bear Sterns and I worked at Goldman Sachs.
When we returned to Mumbai in 2010, we began researching options for potential
business opportunities in India and sectors and spaces where we might be able
to add value.
We came to realize that the Indian online space was being
flooded by websites offering deep discounts and daily deals, e-directories and
e-magazines. But we found very little online that would help us get around our
own city, Mumbai and keep us updated with everything in the lifestyle space.
Thus, was born the idea to have a comprehensive directory as well as an event
update system making it easy for members to just log on to find out general
information about all lifestyle merchants in their city. InOnIt.in was born in
April 2011. Along the way, as we discovered new and upcoming brands across
India, we decided to give our members the ability to purchase from them online
itself, which brings us to Shop.InOnIt.in, which was launched in December 2011.
So starting this curated ecommerce channel was natural for
us since we wanted to give our users the ability to be able to do more online
than just discover events in the city.
Which all Geography
in India are you operating and tell us something about your expansion plan?
Our office is headquartered in Mumbai, but we offer shipping
all across India. We also started International Shipping on April 1, and since
then have been shipping globally.
What all product
lines Shop InOnIt have and next 2-3 years what all you would like to add ?
Anything in the lifestyle space is game for us. We are not
looking at entering the electronics or books space. Currently Shop Inonit has
products in women’s apparel, men’s apparel, jewellery, bags and home décor
items. We would like to add more items in kids apparel, and men’s sections. At
the current stage our website products are more skewed to a female audience.
However, we would like the product selection to be more balanced going forward.
How many customer
visits to Shop InOnIt out of which, what is the success ratio?
We have 25,000 visits a month and a conversion rate of
around 1.7%.
How socially enable
you website is? Do you have a social app of your website?
Our website is very socially enabled, as every product page
as well as every designer page can be shared directly on facebook, twitter or
any other social networks that they users are a part of. Additionally, we have
a comments and reviews section under every product that users can use to rate
their purchases so that others may make more informed decisions.
Did you get the right
analytics about who your customers are and what they are looking and why they
leave your website without making the purchase?
We have had some customers create wishlists but not purchase
the item. Sometimes users do this so they may buy the product at a later stage
(sort of like a bookmarking tool). Any
users who have abandoned carts may have had issues entering their credit card
information and left the website. We are working on the analytics to see what
the drop off point of a user is. Average pages per visit is quite high (more
than 7) and bounce rate is quite low, so we feel users in general enjoy
browsing through our product selection.
What is your marketing
strategy?
Being a start-up, we don’t have a huge budget for marketing,
and so we look at innovative ways to market our website.
- Word of mouth advertising – where in ,we are focused on providing a good customer experience so that our current customers spread the word about us
- Reviews, Features and contests on blogs and other websites
- Weekly promotions where we do sales on different products
Do you have mobile
site /application also?
We are in the process of creating a mobile app. It should be
live shortly.
How many brands
Shop InOnIt tied up with?
Shop InOnIt currently has partnerships with around 90 brands
and our aim is to add 10-15 brands to the e-store every month.
What is your focus
for next 6-8 months?
The focus for the next 6-8 months would be to
- Continue adding new products and creating a more extensive catalogue for our customers
- Complete development of the mobile app as mobile gets more popular
What is your vision
for Shop InOnIt?
To be a leader in the lifestyle and fashion e-commerce space
and a launching pad for emerging brands and designers to showcase their
products and for customers to find products that are unique and good quality.