After the huge success of the Saral 2020, Unicommerce brought you Saral 2021, India’s #1 virtual mega eCommerce summit that happened on 24th – 25th July 2021. The event was hosted with 28+ industry players along with 7+ knowledgeable sessions, shedding a light on new-age tools, including omnichannel retail and the D2C business model. The grand event concluded with 5500+ total registrations and 2500+ unique attendees. Throughout the summit, the attendees grabbed the chance to gather the knowledge of the latest trends and practices that our expert panelists shared with them while answering 1000+ questions live. The eCommerce summit witnessed sellers, retailers, and eCommerce businesses from all around the country making it a huge success and helped us achieve the overall vision of simplifying e-commerce selling. “This Saral 2021 Event was very well organized & coordinated. I learned both novel and valuable knowledge & ideas. Thank you so much to the organizers for conducting such an amazing event. I will strongly recommend it to my friends to join the next event. Once again thank you so much to the team of Saral.” Hari Brahma Reddy, an encouraging testimonial by one of the attendees. After the attendees’ positive responses towards the event, let’s shed some light on what we learned from the 2-day summit.
Key Learnings from each session of Saral 2021
SESSION 1 – D2C brands evolution: How to win in 2021 and beyond
The first session was a collaborative panel discussion including speakers from the most prominent businesses in the industry. The panelist including, Amit Monga – Co-founder, ANS Commerce, Abhiroop Medhekar – CEO & Co-founder, Velocity, Mahadevan Gopalkrishnan – Director of Sales, Payoneer, and Swarndeep Singh – Managing Director, LOGIC ERP, discussed the new D2C trends and strategies that businesses can bank on. The key insights from the session include:
- “The most important aspect in D2C is how you are retaining your customers. You can retain your customers with the help of the experience that you are providing them post-purchase,” Amit Monga – Co-founder, ANS Commerce.
- “The D2C business model consists of four main pillars; sourcing, gaining market access, discoverability, and regulatory,” Mahadevan Gopalkrishnan – Director of Sales, Payoneer.
- “With the wave of the D2C business model, a new horizon has been established for brands in order to elevate their customers’ experience and brands should leverage this,” Swarndeep Singh – Managing Director, Logic ERP Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
- “Niche category is the way to go in D2C. Pick one niche category and build a solid proposition around it,” Abhiroop Medhekar – CEO & Co-founder Velocity.
SuperBottoms on D2C brands evolution: How to win in 2021 and beyond
In addition to our esteemed speaker panel, this year we came up with the idea of brand sessions with some of the most sought-after brands across the nation who shed some light on their journey while giving audiences tips & tricks to design their business master plan. The first brand session featured Pallavi Utagi, Founder and CEO at Superbottoms who talked about how a D2C brand can grow exponentially. Key takeaways from her session:
- It’s important to invest in a good team of people who are both result-oriented and passionate.
- Product innovation is the key to success as it helps a brand to differentiate its portfolio from the competition and establish the mark in its domain.
- The brands should rather focus on a few products while going deep into them than expanding their product portfolio. It will unnecessarily complicate things especially when a brand is at its growth stage.
In case you didn’t get the chance to attend the session or you want to rewatch it to get a better understanding of the subject, watch the video on our Youtube channel. Watch the video:
SESSION 2 – New-age social commerce strategies: Toolkit to get the maximum ROI from your eCommerce investments
For the second session of the summit, we joined hands with the industry experts including, Anshuk Aggarwal – Co-founder & CEO, AdYogi, Murali Balan – CEO, Tenovia, Sudharshan Arya – Global Business Head, SaleAssist.ai, Vishal Totla – Founder, Shipyaari. The key insights from the session include:
- “Remarket to customers so you don’t have to reacquire them over a period of time. Remarketing on various social media platforms in a diligent manner is very important to acquire customers especially during these competitive times,” Murali Balan – CEO, Tenovia.
- “The faster the delivery, the better the chances of a repeat purchase. One way to build up a brand image is to learn about the brand’s customer base and build fulfillment centers around the market to give improved customer service such as one-day delivery systems,” Vishal Totla – Founder, Shipyaari.
- “Brands should diversify their ad spends into Google shopping as it’s a really good platform and has witnessed amazing growth in India,” Anshuk Aggarwal – Co-founder & CEO, AdYogi.
- “Live-video streaming is the best way to interact with your customers,” Sudharshan Arya – Global Business Head, SaleAssist.ai.
In case you didn’t get the chance to attend the session or you want to rewatch it to get a better understanding of the subject, watch the video on our Youtube channel. Watch the video:
SESSION 3 – Perfect playbook to embrace digital for a seamless customer experience
Coming over to the third session of the summit, our esteemed speaker panel including, Krishanth Thangarajah – Global Tech Partnerships Manager, Freshworks, Kumar Vembu – Founder & CEO, GOFRUGAL, Santosh Valecha – Global Head – Customer Success, Netcore, Zaiba Sarang – Co-founder, iThink Logistics, talked about the strategies to enhance customers’ buying journey. The key insights from the session include:
- “To make the life stage of an eCommerce business seamless, the brand must focus on giving their customer proper attention. There are four aspects to it; know your customers’ tastes and preferences, give them the relevant kind of content they need, take the customer to the right place so they complete the transaction, and lastly communicate frequently with them.” Santosh Valecha – Global Head – Customer Success, Netcore.
- “It’s important for a brand to establish its individual shopping App so that the consumers can view a plethora of products at the same time. This not only allows them to make quick purchases but they also tend to buy more than they were supposed to, leading to a boost in business sales,” Kumar Vembu – Founder & CEO, GOFRUGAL.
- “Customer experience is the summary of all the interactions that a customer has with a company over a period of time,” Zaiba Sarang – Co-founder, iThink Logistics.
- “Focus on offering multichannel support to the customer with one single platform that can pull information from other communication platforms,” Krishanth Thangarajah – Global Tech Partnerships Manager, Freshworks.
In case you didn’t get the chance to attend the session or you want to rewatch it to get a better understanding of the subject, watch the video on our YouTube channel. Watch the video:
House of Anita Dongre on Omnichannel in a post-pandemic world: Present reality or futuristic idea?
The fourth session of the summit began with the brand session wherein Ritu Agarawal – Business Head For eCommerce, House of Anita Dongre, talked about Omnichannel Retail. Key takeaways from her session:
- Omnichannel is something that was inevitable to happen as it’s important in this competitive world to have a centralized view of inventory and make it available to the entire customer base.
- Moreover, omnichannel has helped brands around the nation to grow amid these evolving times of online sales.
- The customer touchpoints are classified into three major categories; physical stores (including both individual stores and shop-in-shop), Marketplaces (Amazon, Myntra, Flipkart, Nykaa, etc.), and lastly the brand’s own website.
SESSION 4 – Omnichannel in a post-pandemic world: Present reality or futuristic idea?
The fourth session of the summit e-hosted speakers including, Navin Joshua – Founder & Director, GreenHonchos, Parinay Itkan – Co-founder & COO, Shyplite, Sabhari Shankar – CEO, Wondersoft, Sachin Agrawal – Co-founder & COO, Bizongo. The key insights from the session include:
- “In international markets, omnichannel is a customer experience whereas in India omnichannel is a lot about Omni inventory and Omni fulfillment,” Navin Joshua – Founder & Director, GreenHonchos.
- “The very first aspect of the omnichannel is to keep the experience of the customers across multiple channels standard,” Parinay Itkan – Co-founder & COO, Shyplite.
- “The supply chain has become critical for everyone in the post-pandemic era,” Sachin Agrawal – Co-founder & COO, Bizongo.
- “Talking about the omnichannel, it is not only about inventory, but it is also about promotion and customer experience. A brand can boost sales if it is able to know what a customer prefers to buy online and from a retail store,” Sabhari Shankar – CEO, Wondersoft.
In case you didn’t get the chance to attend the session or you want to rewatch it to get a better understanding of the subject, watch the video on our Youtube channel. Watch the video:
SESSION 5 – Driving excellence in the post-purchase experience: Reduce returns, optimize delivery times, strong fill rates to boost revenue
The fifth session of the summit talked about sustainable ways to boost profitability. Coming over to the speakers, the session included; Pritesh Prabhakar Patil – Director of Strategic Partnerships & Alliances, Cashfree, Shivadeep Mahadi – Co-founder, Eshipz.com, Rhitiman Majumder – Co-founder & CEO, Pickrr, Vikas Garg – Founder, Shipway. The key insights from the session include:
- “If a brand doesn’t have automation in place in terms of processing shipments quickly, then there’s a chance that the customer becomes anxious,” Shivadeep Mahadi – Co-founder, Eshipz.com.
- “In terms of communication, WhatsApp is the most used platform these days,” Rhitiman Majumder – Co-founder & CEO.
- Apologizing to your customers in case of order delays is something that helps improve the post-purchase experience of a customer,” Vikas Garg – Founder, Shipway.
- “Warehousing is the decision that’s planned strategically not only from the perspective of expanding the business but also the vision and the mission of the company for the next quarters,” Pritesh Prabhakar Patil – Director of Strategic Partnerships & Alliances, Cashfree.
In case you didn’t get the chance to attend the session or you want to rewatch it to get a better understanding of the subject, watch the video on our Youtube channel. Watch the video:
SESSION 6 – Scalable eCommerce workflows for budding sellers
The sixth session of the summit talked about strategies for eCommerce aspirants and budding entrepreneurs in the eCommerce industry. The session featured; Aljo Joseph – Co-founder & Chief Business Officer, Finovate Capital, Aqib Mohammed – Co-founder, Powerhouse91, Baqar Iftikhar Naqvi – Founder & CEO, Upriver, Yash Kumar – Co-founder, NimbusPost. The key insights from the session include:
- “To budding entrepreneurs, create a category and understand the structure of it about how you want to operate it,” Baqar Iftikhar Naqvi – Founder & CEO, Upriver.
- “To build an eCommerce business, it is important to integrate with cutting-edge technology systems in order to automate the process systematically,” Aqib Mohammed – Co-founder, Powerhouse91.
- “Once a brand aims towards building the customer stickiness, it becomes very difficult for the customers to move away,” Aljo Joseph – Co-founder & Chief Business Officer, Finovate Capital.
- “If a brand doesn’t have the right tech & tools in place, then it can never scale its business. Technology plays the biggest role,” Yash Kumar – Co-founder, NimbusPost.
In case you didn’t get the chance to attend the session or you want to rewatch it to get a better understanding of the subject, watch the video on our Youtube channel. Watch the video:
SESSION 7 – Boundaryless commerce: Best practices for setting up cross border or targeting international markets
Lastly, the seventh session of the summit walked through the practices to expand business in the international markets. To put a light on the same, panelists including Akanksha Beohar – Business Development Lead, John Chiswell – Cross Border Solutions Manager, Avalara, Praveen Vashishtha – Founder, Gxpress, Pugal.T – Senior Consultant, Tally Solutions Pvt. Ltd., were invited. The key insights from the session include:
- “Price is not the only motivator in the cross-border purchase. Other factors are; better availability of a product, positioning of the brand, etc., ” Akanksha Beohar – Business Development Lead.
- “The logistics sector in India is classified into two segments; Local small players (unorganized), and Large international players (organized),” Praveen Vashishtha – Founder, Gxpress.
- “One of the common pitfalls that customers face when shipping cross borders – Assuming the consistency between the countries (in terms of duty rates),” John Chiswell – Cross Border Solutions Manager, Avalara.
- “The 3 C’s to take control of your business; Cash Flow Management, Cost Cutting, & Choose the Right Technology,” Pugal.T – Senior Consultant, Tally Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
In case you didn’t get the chance to attend the session or you want to rewatch it to get a better understanding of the subject, watch the video on our Youtube channel. Watch the video:
Go-Mechanics on Scalable eCommerce workflows for budding sellers
The last session of the summit concluded with the brand session from Amit Bhasin – Co-founder, Go-Mechanics, who talked about eCommerce for budding entrepreneurs. Key takeaways from his session:
- Before an aspiring entrepreneur plans to establish their own business, it’s important to first do in-depth research, analyzing the events involved in starting the business in that particular domain.
- The beauty of eCommerce is that there’s so much information available that a seller will always be able to find a niche.
- Demand planning is a very important aspect of eCommerce retail.
Awards Ceremony
This year, we also held a series of awards where we felicitated some of the finest brands in the eCommerce industry for their tremendous performance and our partners for their continuous efforts & contributions towards the journey.
Brand Felicitation
Amid the hard times where many brands were struggling to scale their business, some of them have outshone themselves with their tremendous performance! Following are the brands that performed incredibly well:
- Anveshan as the Breakthrough brand of the year in the Agri Category
- Bakersville as the Breakthrough brand of the year in the FMCG category
- Man Matters as the Breakthrough brand of the year in the Health and Wellness Category
- Plum Goodness as the Breakthrough brand of the year in the Beauty Category
- Campus Shoes as the Breakthrough brand of the year in the Footwear category
- Chumbak as the Scalable Omnichannel Implementation of the Year
- Street 9 as the Breakthrough brand of the year in the Fashion Category
Ecosystem Partner Felicitation
During these unprecedented times, some of our partners showed their devotion to helping the entire ecosystem. To appreciate their remarkable and incredible contributions, we recognized them and showed our gratitude!
- ANS Commerce as the Outstanding D2C Enabler of FY 2020-21
- Brand Fortunes as the Emerging Brand Growth Enabler of FY 2020-21
- Upriver Ecommerce and recognizing them as the Rising Star in Marketplace Enablement for FY 2020-21
- GreenHonchos as the Omnichannel Star of FY 2020-21
- Tenovia as the expert in Excellent eCommerce Implementation for FY 2020-21
Unicommerce Partner felicitation
We recognized our partners and showed our gratitude towards their devotion and contribution in partnering with us and helping us to make eCommerce selling simplified. Following are the partners who helped in our eCommerce journey:
- Growth Decoders as the Platinum Partner
- Ascezen Consulting Pvt. Ltd. as the Diamond Partner
- WeExpan Consulting Pvt. Ltd. as the Gold Partner
- Rish Lifestyles as the Silver Partner
- Webdaksha Solutions Pvt. Ltd. as the Silver Partner
- The Picture factory as the Bronze Partner
Encouraging Response from the Audience
Saral 2021 received an overwhelming response from both the partners and the audiences. The whole team of Unicommerce is proud and happy to receive such encouraging responses. To capture the real-time reactions of the attendees and understand what worked out and whatnot, each session of the summit included a poll that enabled respondents to share their impression of that summit. And overall, the poll results reflected a highly satisfactory audience. The summit saw rapid engagements from our attendees via Chat and the Q&A section at the end of each session. A total of 1000+ queries were addressed live by the panelist resulting in an average session rating of 4.6+. We hope that our initiative to make eCommerce selling simplified will help your eCommerce business. For more information on SARAL or to get Unicommerce’s highly recommended support for your business, Write to us at contactus@unicommerce.com or call us at +91 828 7790 222