SHEROES had a candid conversation with Harleen Kaur, CMO, Trendybharat.
TrendyBharat is an online shopping mall that showcases a fusion of modern and ethnic products. In other words, it’s the sole platform to combine our long-standing culture with a modern outlook. TrendyBharat marketplace offers optimal yet outstanding shopping experience to a large customer-base spread across PAN India.
Before starting TrendyBharat, Harleen completed her Masters Degree in International Market from Symbiosis, Pune and completed a Diploma in Personal Management. She was fascinated with the vast opportunities that lie within ecommerce. After her research, she conceptualized the idea of introducing a platform giving a glimpse of India’s vast culture with a modern outlook, and hence, TrendyBharat came into existence.
Here’s what she has to say to all those waiting to jump in the ecommerce space.
What was the inspiration behind Trendy Bharat?
The inspiration came from the concept of capturing the regional variation and cultural affluence of India. Apart from that, there are several other factors that inspired us to create this platform. The existing void in Indian ecommerce share wherein value for money, white label goods are unable to compete with dominant glamorized branded products. We got inspired from the idea of bridging this gap. There is a huge pool of uncelebrated manufactured products which in terms of quality second to none. But due to huge gap, these quality products reverberating with rich Indian culture and ethnicity fail to reach to the mass.
We wanted to create a platform to connect local artisans and designers directly to the customers to increase their livelihood while preserving our values, traditions and culture.
With the high competitiveness of ecommerce; what strategies do you implement to differentiate yourselves?
As such the ecommerce marketplace doesn’t have any USP or differentiator, however, we focus on basic business components that make every transaction commercially viable. Our products are sourced directly from manufacturers/vendors who specialize in respective categories and offer great value for money. We work on pure marketplace model wherein we connect local manufacturers directly with the customers across India. We offer great customer experience in terms of shopping on our platform. Our platform is user-friendly with simple and easy navigation even for the customers who have recently been enabled digitally.
What was the most challenging part of setting up an ecommerce company?
Putting up the tech pieces in order is by far the most challenging part of setting up an ecommerce company in India. The reason being non-availability of domain experts in multiple technologies. The technology is growing so rapidly that it becomes impossible to process associated core competence in-house to match the ongoing tech evolution.
Do you ever encounter any problems as a woman doing business?
I feel that ecommerce is well-suited for women professionals and entrepreneurs as it revolves around the shopping experience. And, women, on the whole, possess higher attributes with regard to shopping, business and experience. I find it easy to understand customers’ expectations in terms of pricing, product quality and customer service having dealt with it myself in personal capacity for so many years.
What have you done that has been very effective in helping to grow the business?
My expertise and familiarity with ecommerce industry helped me provide TrendyBharat a strong foundation. I’m actively involved in developing strategies beneficial for our brand. Conceptualizing and implementing strategies for customer engagement have been a key driver in TrendyBharat’s success.
When the chips are down, how do you deal with those kinds of situations?
The environment in our organization is led by the sentiments, “Never Give Up”. We are all motivated to look up in adversity and be prepared for fall back options. Thus, the time when chips are down, there is no room for panic in their environment.
What advice would you offer to anyone starting up an ecommerce business?
Before starting off an ecommerce, the objectives need to be very clear and funding aspects should be well-defined and anticipated. The startup story is more or less spreading around India and investors are beginning to spread negative sentiments about startups and they look forward to invest in progressive and growing companies. The offline business acumen should be factored in online business structuring or rolling out in any new venture.