ishippo attempt to bring India a little closer to the world

A large number of new players are entering the Indian e-commerce industry to test their fortunes as it shows signs of phenomenal growth year on year. This year, the growth is likely to be worth $38 billion, a growth of 67% over 2015. One such new entrant is Bengaluru-based iShippo.com, a marketplace for all handmade products.

iShippo.com founded by Karma Bhutia, a serial entrepreneur from Sikkim with over 20 years of experience in providing solutions for e-governance, mobile innovation, big data analytics, cloud computing among others is trying to be different from existing players like Amazon, Flipkart or Snapdeal in terms of products and the way it will reach out to potential customers.

Bhutia has invested around $150,000 from his savings and contributed by his family and friends. Having launched the operations about two months ago, he is now looking at raising $2 million pre-Series Funds of iShippo.com is not like any other e-commerce player in the market. It is a online marketplace where people around the world connect both online and offline, to make, sell and buy handcrafted goods.

At iShippo, their attempt is to bring India a little closer to the world. They partner with artists, artisan communities, designers, craftsmen to showcase a new, contemporary design language that comes from India and belongs to the world, said Karma Bhutia, founder & CEO, iShippo.com.

Bhutia inspired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Make in India campaign wants to not only promote handcrafted ‘Make in India’ product but also promote the heritage of India. He wants to help Indian traditional handloom artists and craftsmen and provide a sustainable business opportunity to them.

iShippo has been recognized as one of the top five e-commerce startups to look out for in 2016. It is also the only Indian e-commerce company registered to export handicraft all over the world. Bhutia is travelling to Birmingham in September this year to tie up with local channel partners for delivery of goods bought on his marketplace.

iShippo, as a platform are giving value to artisans, customers, NGOs, self help groups. They are supporting hundreds of artisans who do not have access to modern markets and bridge the gap both economic and digital.

Currently, iShippo has 7,500 vendors, most of them are small, and sell over 5,000 products. Recently, the company tied up with the ministry of textiles, Export Promotion Council and Handicrafts Development Corporations in Karnataka, Sikkim among others for the promotion of local artisans and their products. For logistics, iShippo has tied up with Delhivery, Ecom Express, Parcelled, a hyperlocal start up and FedEx to reach out to 22,000 pincodes in the country.

Unlike Flipkart or Amazon or Snapdeal, iShippo has not just tied up with artisans, but is also providing back-end support to them in terms of assisting them to get finance from banks and source raw materials among others. They are building a community around artisans and designers. If somebody in UK or US or anywhere in the world sends a design for any product, they will send it to the concerned artisans and get their desired product manufactured and shipped to them, Bhutia said.

According to Bhutia, e-commerce is just not bringing vendors on platform and connecting them with buyers, but also providing them a sustainable business model and crate a steady revenue stream. Bhutia is confident that he can play a significant role in India’s e-commerce market as well as grab a portion of India’s handicraft exports in the long run. Last year, India exported $5 billion worth of handcrafted goods. Within the country, around $2-3 billion market is available for them to exploit. Lot of this market is taken over by Craftsvilla, etsy.com, an US firm among others.

Another speciality of iShippo, they work with clusters in Channapatna and Karnataka State Handicrafts Development Corporation to sell their products and hundreds of individual artisans. Through its tie up with the ministry of textile, it will promote ‘Craftmark’ India Handloom mark. It is also promoting products with geographical indicator such as Chanderi sarees, Lucknavi saree, Naga shawl from Nagaland, Kolhapuri chappals, Channapatna toys and Ilkal sarees among others.