WOMAN SPECIAL ..................Woman Power:Buyers and Sellers

Woman Power : Buyers and Sellers   Women are starting out as buyers, and then becoming sellers as they gain big from the online retail revolution sweeping over India “Minimum investment, Maximum profit guaranteed, Make money from home“ seen those ads? On pink or yellow or dirty green leaflets? Well, you can wipe off the incredulity. A different kind of operator, more evolved, is actually making this work, especially for women. As India sees a revolution in its $300 billion retail industry with the emergence of online marketplaces such as Amazon, Snapdeal and Flipkart, thousands of women are gaining financial independence by selling products across categories such as health care, home furnishing, jewellery, handicrafts, and fashion apparel. These women now constitute about 20% of the 1 million sellers on platforms that form the $12 billion online retail indus try. They are gaining prominence in a country where the percentage of the female workforce has fallen from 39% in 2010 to about 30% currently. The shift is also empowering women who were formerly largely employed in sectors such as farming, textiles, and construction. Take for instance Namita Jain, a former homemaker who saved about Rs 4 lakh to invest in starting Neerav Stores on Delhibased online marketplace Snapdeal.Every morning Jain gets up to check emails of online orders from across the country on her smartphone. She lists products such as utensils, pressure cookers, gas stoves, and induction cookers on online marketplaces. And every morning she sends her four-member staff to Delhi's trader hub of Chandni Chowk to source the products from wholesalers. The products are brought back to her home in North Delhi, where she stays with her husband and in-laws. These are then packed and dispatched the same day through courier partners. “Between 10 am to 5 pm, I end up completing about 400 products a day on Snapdeal alone,“ said Jain, who is planning to start a computer accessories category online. According to the India Brand Equity Foundation, by 2020, the total Indian retail market is projected to reach $1.3 trillion, with fashion and footwear leading the category by accounting for 40% of sales. It's in these categories that women are especially making a mark. Arti Goel, 47, started the experiment of selling online three years ago as an addendum to her husband's home furnishing supply business to hospitals and hotels. Within three years, the online business has taken over the offline. From a staff of just four people, her team is now over 50 strong. “From selling other people's goods we now make our own brand of home furnishings in Delhi in a small factory. Today's online entrepreneurs are tomorrow's industrialists,“ said Goel, a mother to two grown-up kids. Her brand, MeSleep, now makes up 95% of revenues for Ankit Trading, the commercial enterprise run by her husband. “It takes just five to six hours of your time to sell online, which can be done from home. Offline selling doesn't match up to this convenience,“ said Jain of Neerav Stores. Women such as Jain and Goel are part of a growing community of microentrepreneurs in a country where women are in the minority in the workforce. Indian women form 26.1% of all rural workers, and 15% of all urban workers, according to Catalyst, a global think tank on women workplace participation. But on Flipkart, of the 30,000-odd sellers, about 20% are women.Interestingly, about 15% of these women are customers-turnedsellers. “These women have identified the gap and launched their own brands offering regional handicrafts, antique pieces, and designer wear,“ said Ankit Nagori, senior vice president, marketplace, at Bengaluru-based Flipkart. On Snapdeal, women account for 30% of the sellers. “Our goal is to create 1 million successful entrepreneurs within the next three years, and we believe women entrepreneurs will play a major role in this,“ said Vishal Chadha, vice president, market development, at Snapdeal. Amazon India, however, has a different take. “We don't track the gender of our sellers when they register on the platform,“ said Amit Deshpande, a director and general manager at Amazon India, which has about 20,000 listed sellers. Archita Gupta, 32, Yo Pharma It was two years ago that Archita Gupta, who was a software engineer with Motorola, Bengaluru, decided to move back to New Delhi to care after her ailing mother, who was suffering from cancer. Looking at the exorbitant prices of the medicines, Gupta, a mother of a nine-year-old daughter, decided to set up an online health store selling and recommending medicines with similar salts but with lower prices. To keep the lights burning, the Linux and Java expert also started online pharmacy store Yo Pharma on Snapdeal. Egged by her husband, also an engineer, Gupta started selling BP monitors, glucometers, and nebulisers online. She also tied up with brands such as Omron, GNC, Horlicks, and Nivea directly to sell their products online. Alongside, Gupta added weighing scales and gymming proteins to her product line, all sourced from wholesalers and distributors in New Delhi. “If you maintain delivery times and quality, customers do buy from you repeatedly online, as it's a much more transparent medium,“ said Gupta. Over time, her daily product sales grew up to 400-500 products a day. With healthy margins of even up to 40-50% in the pharma and health category, it's a sweet spot Gupta has carved out for herself. In the meanwhile, her husband died in a car accident, but left her with the dream to take the online health store to the next level. “It's my dream to make Yo Pharma and Healthvala successful, so that my husband sitting in the stars can happily look down and feel proud,“ said Gupta. Khushei Himanshu Gupta, 30, Casa Joya Gupta was an aspiring 15-year-old fashion designer when she launched Casa Joya, a boutique store selling fashion and apparel. After she obtained her MBA, she took over the New Delhi venture full time, bringing on 25 employees to the team. In 2012, when she was pregnant with her first child, she started shifting her usiness to online platforms. “Doing assignments online was something I could manage from home,“ said the mother of a 1.5-year old boy, and whose husband left an IT job to be in charge of operations at the company. Today, Casa Joya has an inventory of 12,000 items including home furnishings and baby care products, and 40% of the company's sales happen online. The company sells around 1,000 products a day through Shopclues alone, among other ecommerce platforms. “Shopclues does not mark up their products as much, so people get the right products at the right price,“ said Gupta, adding that selling online allows her to reach customers in India and across the world. Shahenaz Ghelani, 53, Shahenaz Jewellers Shahenaz Ghelani has owned a small shop on PG road, Ahmedabad called Shahenaz Jewellers since 1995. Ghelani, whose target audience was limited to neighbourhood customers, repeatedly read about the boost in ecommerce in the newspapers and, with a bit of handholding, registered on Amazon. “I read that people prefer online buying, so with a little bit of research narrowed down on selling at Amazon. Their executive came to our shop and helped with the onboarding process. I have basic computer knowledge. They helped me understand the technology and processes, which was the biggest barrier for me,“ she said. In less than six months and without any marketing effort, Ghelani has seen sales of Rs1 lakh with about 650 displayed products. “I am going to add 400 more this month. I feel if I just put in a little more effort, sales of six months can be achieved in 15 days.“ According to Ghelani, the shipping rates and referral fee for the jewellery category are also lower on Amazon compared to other portals. “For example, Amazon charges 8% commission, while Snapdeal charges around 15%.“ She has now shut her physical shop and completely moved online. “Now I can take care of household responsibility and do business sitting at home,“ said the mother of two. Shefali Tambi, 32, Shefcoz Shefali Tambi, a jewellery designer by profession, wanted to become an independent entrepreneur after her marriage. Along with her husband, she started Jaipur-based online business Shefcoz in January 2013, which now owns two lifestyle brands, Kapra and WhyNotAutumn. The “Indian handcraft and quirky products store“ now employs 15 employees, half of whom are women, and is growing 100% year on year. Since the company began selling on Flipkart six months ago, its incomes have grown by 20-30%, and the platform now accounts for more than half of the store's online sales. While 25% of Shefcoz's sales come from e-platforms, the proportion is growing, and the husband-wife duo expect to double their online volume this year. “Initially, we were under the notion that our products are more appealing to foreign consumers and NRIs, but through Flipkart we have understood that the domestic market is equally important there is a huge crowd who likes and wants to buy our products,“ said Tambi.   Harsimran Julka, Evelyn Fok & Aditi Shrivastava ET13MAR15