A forward thinking professional with a passion for developing cutting edge solutions to technology and internet requirements, Saahil Goel, CEO & Co Founder, KartRocket.com has been fanatical about information systems management. Excerpts:
- Can you talk a little about your background and how you came to found KartRocket?
I always had an avid interest in web and Internet since 6th grade. I started building websites for friends & family at that age as a hobby and this continued throughout my college and professional career as well. While helping out a friend with an eCommerce website for the Indian market, I suggested them a few platforms based out in the US, but later realized that none of them were actually customized for the Indian market. I saw this as an untapped opportunity. Witnessing the changing face of the Indian eCommerce industry and the scope it offered to flourish, I started out to productize my expertise in the website development by providing a cutting edge and “for India” solution for this market. Thus began the journey of KartRocket.
- What services are provided by KartRocket?
If you have a product to sell, then KartRocket provides you with a great platform to do so. If you are an artist who makes beautiful hand-painted mobile covers or a stay-at-home mom crafting exquisite shagun envelopes or an established entrepreneur looking to expand your customer base, then KartRocket is an end-to-end online solution that helps you sell online easily. KartRocket is a power-packed, do-it-yourself e-commerce enablement platform that aims to simplify online selling for Indian SMEs. With the following services offered by KartRocket, you’re set to roll with your online store in no time.
Click, Upload, Sell from your smartphone: Our most important offering is our mobile app, “KartRocket Online Seller App”. This powerful yet simple app allows anyone with a smart phone to create their own free ecommerce website in minutes. The users can easily click their product pictures and upload them directly to their website through the mobile app.
Selling through Mobile: By introducing newer sales channels such as “Sell On WhatsApp” and “Sell On Facebook”, KartRocket empowers users to boost their sales through P2P and organic channels along with giving users their own branded online presence.
Payment Gateways: More than 15 payment gateway options to accept national and international payments with zero setup cost and negotiated TDR for partner payment gateways.
ShipRocket: Automated shipping with 1 clicks pickup and delivery. It has tied up with various courier companies such as FedEx, DTDC, First Flight, Aramex etc. to help you ship products anywhere in the world.
SellRocket: To help you manage Order and Inventory and getting your product listed by integrating your online store with leading marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, Snapdeal, Flipkart and Shopclues for increased visibility.
KartRocket Paid Plans: While the mobile app offers a great website, but certain customers do have custom requirements for their ecommerce websites. Our paid plans offer these customizations and are suitable for established ecommerce players or big SMEs.
- What is your vision for the firm?
We, as an organization, completely believe in the mobile revolution. We are sure that five years down the line, everything is going to be on mobile. And, that’s our vision as a company. We want to build a mobile platform that enables anyone with a product to sell online. Another objective is to build a platform that acts as a bridge between the seller & the buyer. We are confident that in the future, platforms are going to take the backstage and the buyers will have a direct connection to the sellers. Therefore, we want to build a platform on the similar lines.
“We want to deliver a seamless experience for our users through our mobile app”
- What’s the most important thing you’re working on right now, and how are you making it happen?
We are currently working on a lot of exciting stuff to help our merchants start selling online. We believe that we have a great product for our merchants to help them start their online store and give them a great online presence.
But, what they don’t have is a way to get noticed and start getting sales. Currently, that’s our primary focus. We want to build as many tools as possible to help merchant get sales. Sell via WhatsApp and Facebook are the first tools that we launched through our mobile app and the response has been amazing. The efforts that the merchants are putting in to drive sales only prove that this is an area that we need to address.
We are building pipes to various marketplaces through which a merchant can directly list their products, without putting in any efforts. With it, we are building products with which the merchants can start their own digital marketing campaigns within the defined budgets. We are hoping to solve this problem as soon as possible.
- Is it your current challenge?
100%. Today, merchants expect a one-stop solution to their problems of starting, maintaining and growing their online store. We have already built a great platform to start an online store, have a great product for addressing the shipping hassles any merchant faces. And, now we are trying to solve the puzzle: “How to get Orders for our merchants”. This is really the biggest challenge of them all but again a great opportunity for us.
- What are the future implications of the technology you are developing?
What we are trying to do will completely change the meaning of eCommerce enablement for the users. There are five major facets of ecommerce enablement: cataloging, website, traffic & sales, payments and shipping. Usually, companies work in maximum 1-2 domains. We, as a company, have a product in every space & have been successful in delivering a productized offering in four facets already. Now, we are trying to build a product to deliver sales to our merchants. And, the fact that we are trying to provide a technology, wherein all of this is possible through mobile, just makes the significance of what we are doings more bigger & better for the users and the industry.
- What are the key company milestones for the next 6-12 months that need to be achieved?
In terms of product, we want to deliver a seamless experience for our users through our mobile app. Our first milestone is to deliver apps for every platform: Android, iOS and Windows. In terms of business, we want to enable 100,000 sellers to sell their products online through our mobile app.
Simplifying online selling for Indian SMEs
