Ecommerce in India is flourishing like never before. A number of big and small players have jumped into the bandwagon resulting into a cut-throat competition. To improve their authority, more established eCommerce portals are offering some crazy incentives and product prices. Some examples are 100-day return policy, step by step tracking of shipment, same day or next day delivery, interest free EMIs etc.
The most sought facility in Indian eCommerce system is ‘Cash on Delivery’. Out of curiosity, I once enquired Bluedart regarding this facility and they answered, you need to give them a monthly revenue of minimum 2 lakhs in order to avail this facility. This means you must sell a volume of products which generates at least Rs 2 lakhs worth of courier charges only. Insane!! at least for a startup.
On one side, the margin on product is significantly diminishing, while on the other side consumers are getting more and more demanding in terms of facilities. So, the only feasible strategy here seems to be playing on volumes.
Above two paragraphs clearly hints eCommerce is no more a child’s play in India. You really need a heavy investment to jump into this Warfield.
Aren’t there some shortcuts?
Well, one feasible idea seems to be using an already stable platform to sell your products i.e. a eCommerce SAAS platform.
Its not a new concept in India. Some popular Portals like eBay and Tradus are already offering third party vendors to sell goods using their established portals, but there are some new players with more organized and better ecosystems. Instead of selling goods on a third party website, you can now launch your own full fledge e-commerce portals using their already established e-commerce SAAS platforms.
We picked 5 such SAAS platform in order to identify the most complete solution.
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5 Indian SAAS E-Commerce Platforms – Side by Side Comparison
Shopnix
Shopnix helps you building and hosting an ecommerce website with an ease. But rest is up to you. You need to purchase a merchant account, arrange for shipping of products yourself etc. Though they will help you out with everything.
In plain words, Shopnix gives you only technical supports like creating an ecommerce portal, hosting it, integration with payment gateways and all.
The free package of shopnix supports only cash on delivery, which is subject to your arrangement with the shipping company. The moment you would like to integrate a payment gateway, you will need to upgrade to a paid plan.
vPlanetCommerce
vPlanetcommerce is another eCommerce SAAS provider whose free package seems a good deal as well. Unlimited Products and user login up to a limit of 5 GB Data Transfer is absolutely free. But again, you need to manage the merchant account and shipping logistics yourself. They promise to provide a seamless integration.
39shops
39shops goes a step ahead. They have pre-configured payment gateways, you just need to enter your authentication details and you can start accepting payment. So again you need to arrange for your own merchant account and shipping.
Buildabazar
Buildabazaar is powered by Infibeam. It lets you use their payment gateway setup (transaction fee applicable) but the shipping logistic has to be managed by you. Though they mention integration with 35 third party courier with which they can connect you to explore a partnership.
Buildabazar collects payment on your behalf and then pays you on 16th and end of every month after deducting their transaction charges.
Martjack
Martjack claims to offer a complete solution and seems it does. Martjack has exclusive partnership with HDFC bank to provide a pre-integrated payment gateway and with aramex to provide a pre-integrated shipping logistics. What else you need?
While Martjack looks like a complete solution, Buildabazar seems to be a stable solution.
Thanks for the insights Ashwini. I think its essential to also bring Shopify & Zepo into this discussion, especially from an Indian perspective. Our pick of the lot would be Zepo, which provides better integration with third party marketplaces in India with a better integration of Indian payment gateways (and netbanking). So might be a better choice over Martjack for the Indian ecommerce market.
Ashwini, you might want to take a look at the table under Buildabazaar. The max-min numbers are interchanged.
Nitin Purswani’s Zepo.in should also be listed!
Arun Prabhudesai hey Zepo.in not here? I guess that has got most beautiful Online e-commerce stores in India. Please include them in the list :)
These solutions are great if you just want to test the waters. However if your are looking to do some serious eCommerce Business, you should look at enterprise class eCommerce solutions that not only offer you eCommerce frontend websites, but more importantly help you manage your eCommerce operation. Look at offerings like DWA Commerce : http://commerce.digitalwebadvisors.com or NetSutie : http://www.netsuite.com
Buildabazaar plans start at Rs. 1,000 instead of Rs. 10,000 as mentioned above. Please rectify.
@manu, yes we will change the graphic to reflect the correct pricing.. We are also adding one more SAAS ecommerce platform to make the article more complete..
PowerStores.com offers the ability to customize the look and feel of your site through a special theme language called fluid. They developed this so CSS and HTML experts can create custom experiences. No other Indian platform offers this flexibility.
I agree with the thought that E-commerce is developing like never before in India. In early days, I had never trusted these online portals for shopping but now a days they are working on trust building by offering such offers and return policy. Now I am also a frequent user of online portals for electronics and clothing products.