India is a fast growing country, not just in terms of financial prowess, market size or buying power, but culturally and socially as well. The emergence of the e-commerce industry has been one of the most welcome developments in India. In a country where people hardly reach to their wallets before a well fought bargain deal, and a major factor of trust deficit in non-personal dealings, the establishment of online mega-stores is amazing to see. And now, almost everything can be bought online in India – from clothes to electronics, from books to condoms. Wait. What? Did I say condoms? Yes, Arul Oli and Vivek Raja, both graduates of Crescent Engineering College, Anna University, have founded Shycart, a personal shopping platform for items people usually feel shy to walk into a convenience store and ask for.
In conversation with LifeBeyondNumbers, Vivek Raja talks about Shycart, their vision and lots more…
Inception Of Shycart.com
It all started with a few realizations and experiences. Some time back, one of my friend was hesitating to buy a pregnancy test kit. A friend’s mom who happened to be a gynaecologist was telling us about the alarming increase in abortions because of unexpected pregnancies. I am sure we all know how uncomfortable we as a society become regarding these things. We found there are more products people shy away to buy from physical stores. Besides, we found that most of the shop keepers had little knowledge or no knowledge on the products. That’s where we sensed we have a market to be tapped. We started our operations in November 2012.
Shycart.com is a personal shopping website selling products that are intimate. We assure 100% privacy to our customers. We pack the orders so discreetly that not even the delivery boy will know what is inside the parcel. Currently we are getting around 60 thousand people visiting the site every month. We ship around 20 orders everyday. Right now, we are totally self-funded with a team of 8 people totally dedicated and passionate about the venture.
In terms of product range, some of the products like shecup, eco femme, Shycart has been the pioneer in bringing them to the online market and till date being sold only by Shycart. We have been highly appreciated and received warmly by people from various arms of the society. We are proud to say that most of our customers feel highly satisfied with the way we deliver and the kind of customer service we provide.
The Challenges, Learning And Future
The Challenges, Learning And FutureWith the kind of product range lined up – sourcing seems to be the real good problem since most of the products are imported by major suppliers and keeping the inventory we’ve found to be highly challenging. Lot of statistics, study needs to be in place to keep the inventory well in place. Oli and I believe in the saying “What we focus on – grows”. We highly focus on improving ourselves in every sector and we constantly work on them. Be it the kind of packing we do, the product ranges we line up, the service providers we tie up with, we focus on the nitty-gritty of the details to deliver things with perfection. We keep customer service atop of everything.
Our team stays up to date about the “market” and we are in the final process of launching a few interesting services to the market. We have clear action plans to quadruple the sales, hits and revenue in next 1 year. We are executing them with great gusto and passion.
We feel Shycart is a very good concept and a real time need. A lot of unwanted circumstances could be averted if the products available in the market are made use of. Shycart providing a convenient and discreet way to shop for these products will surely prove helpful to many. It’d be interesting to see how people receive Shycart in the times to come. From everyone at LifeBeyondNumbers, we wish the team of Shycart all the success.