As the Indian consumer started spending more and more time online from mobile devices, Mangesh Panditrao and Vivek Phalak hit upon an idea — to help brands set up their online business and drive growth. The duo launched Shoptimize in 2012 that makes use of artificial intelligence to generate actionable insights and recommendations to discover opportunities for revenue growth.
With budding businesses seeking ways to understand how consumers buy and how an effective D2C e-commerce platform can help them cater to the consumers’ needs, Shoptimize has been helping businesses increase their D2C revenue by keeping costs in check with the help of data-driven recommendations.
Early days
Before co-founding Shoptimize, Mangesh and Vivek gained considerable knowledge and experience in software development, in India and the United States. Mangesh worked for companies like Infosys, Stanley Technologies, JDA Software Group and Exact Software after finishing his education at Purdue University in Indiana. Vivek, on the other hand, already had 22 years of experience in building world-class software in Silicon Valley and India. He worked for companies like Oracle and SaaS startup Skire, which was later acquired by Oracle.
The founders had a fairly simple vision when they came up with the idea of starting Shoptimize – helping brands stay connected with their customers in an increasingly digital world. Given the heterogeneity of the Indian market, they realised there was a need for brands that performed well in certain demographics to remain connected with customers directly.
Their primary focus on the D2C aspect of businesses helped them consolidate their services. As more brands were compelled to take their businesses online after the pandemic, Shoptimize capitalised on the opportunity by providing them with the ideal platform.
Currently, Pune-based Shoptimize is helping brands like Haldiram’s, Intex, Schneider Electric, Symphony, Medimix, Veeba, Whirlpool, and more set up their D2C business, and bring them closer to their consumers by optimising their online presence. With an annual revenue of Rs 90 million in FY 2019-20 and Rs 110 million in FY 2020-21, Shoptimize is moving up in the market by helping others grow their business.
Optimising experiences
With a focus on D2C, Shoptimize has helped brands grow and reach their consumers. At present, the startup can run websites on its platform, support websites on other platforms, and drive growth for the brand it works on. What makes Shoptimize stand apart, according to Mangesh, is its ability to take risks and full control of the platform for the brands it is helping.
“What makes us unique is that we can grow these brands by taking some risks, spending on their behalf and helping them grow. I think that is something that no other company, not just in India but globally, can do,” says Mangesh. Shoptimize brings in customer intelligence data from multiple sources to provide a 360-degree view of the business. Based on this data, Shoptimize is able to generate actionable insights and recommendations.
Talking about the factors that they focus on while optimising any website, Mangesh adds that their approach towards helping different brands needs to vary according to the product that is being sold. “The variability soon got to a point where it was very difficult …….
Source: https://yourstory.com/2021/12/ai-powered-e-commerce-platform-helping-d2c-brands-generate-revenue/amp