While having an online presence for one’s business might have sounded like a luxury a couple of years ago, having an omnichannel presence has become a no-brainer in the post-pandemic era.
The digital boom, coupled with the drop in offline sales due to the pandemic-induced lockdowns has pushed a lot of small businesses, including limited liability partnership (LLP) firms and sole proprietors, towards having an online presence.
This has kept the e-commerce solution companies busy, witnessing a surge in the adoption of their digital offerings like online marketplace & app stores, order management and warehouse management.
“Ever since the e-commerce space has witnessed a boom, the solution providers in the space have become a fulcrum between the marketplace, the small D2C (Direct-to-Customer) brands and micro retailers,” said Kapil Makhija, CEO, Unicommerce – a SaaS-based e-commerce solutions provider.
Besides pushing for an omnichannel presence, these brands also need ancillary services like logistics, order management and online marketing to ensure remain relevant in the new digital ecosystem.
“A lot of these D2C brands who have just gone live virtually need a host of online tools like a digital store, online payment gateway, social media integration and email marketing. To fill this gap, we have been providing our platform to third-party vendors who provide services like logistics, customer relationship management and so on,” said Sampad Swain, CEO and Co-founder, Instamojo – an e-commerce platform for D2C brands and MSMEs.
The e-commerce solutions providers concurred on the trend that they have been witnessing exponential growth in terms of inquiries and client onboarding for online marketplaces. Since all the services a business needs like order management and online marketplaces are provided in one place, the business doesn’t need to tie up with multiple partners throughout their journey, said Makhija.
Earlier in the year, as per the emerging e-commerce segments report by Unicommerce, the adoption of e-commerce in some segments like beauty & personal care products and health and pharma saw year-on-year growth of over 100 per cent.
“The D2C brands and the retailers have started looking at these tools as cost of doing business” and hence are adapting to this form, Swain said.
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