ShopTap - empowering retailers using technology
8 years ago Shalini BSupply chain management is a big game. It begins with a demand from the customer, passes on to the manufacturer and then the product. Suppliers are the people who supply all the materials that go into the production process, then the manufacturer sells the products to the wholesaler which is then passed on to the retailer for final sale to the consumer.
The profit and value of the supply chain depends on how well the retailer is able to manage sales. But, has anyone ever thought about the difficulties a retailer faces in order to make maximum sales? The retailer, with a very less profit margin has high inventory costs, high rental costs for his shop and other miscellaneous costs including transportation, labour etc.
Manikanta Racharla and Raghu Muvvala understood this unaddressed problem of retailers and came up with an idea to solve it.  Their idea to help retailers paved the path to the launch of ShopTap , an offline e-commerce platform designed to bridge the gap between retailers and consumers. This startup went live in 2014, and since then they have been receiving a tremendous response from their target audience, retailers.
ShopTap helps retailers to sell products without having to invest in inventory and working capital. On signing up with ShopTap, a small town retailer can sell over 50,000 products in 14 categories without any major investments in inventory or land. The motto of this company is to drive business into unorganized retail stores that contribute 96% of commerce in India.
“If we can recall the evolution of retail business in India, there are no noticeable transformations in the working and process of selling products in retail stores. Any retailer with a physical store has to invest in working capital and product inventory to sell the products to consumers. Other than the major costs of investment, retailers need to take care of customer retention, loyalty, stock, financials and much more. In today’s scenario, this is a serious pain. The world is moving towards digitization, mobility and technology. That’s when we though, if everything is taking a paradigm shift to the digital world then why is the retail business still left behind? On researching more, we found that there are 12 million unorganized retail outlets in India that are unable to organize sales process and inventory management, ultimately losing customers and business. This piece of research brought in us the firm determination of addressing this problem through ShopTap.â€ÂÂ, Says Manikanta.
How ShopTap works –
Retailers having a physical store can sign up with ShopTap. For every sign up, they have two products:
- ShopTap kiosk – Retailers who are unable to stock inventory and would want to upgrade their existing stock count can sign up with ShopTap kiosk. They empower the store with a low cost touch screen kiosk, which has the option of digital inventory. Walk-in customers can browse through the digital inventory and once the order is placed, online wholesalers will ship the product to consumers through ShopTap. For every successful order, retailer will earn commission without any investment on inventory.
- ShopTap M-POS App – Retailers who are have no problem in storing inventory and those who have already invested in physical stocks can sign up for ShopTap M-POS app. With this application, retailers can show the product physically and place the order through the app. The selected product will be shipped directly to the customer’s doorsteps from the wholesalers of ShopTap.
The team of Startup Hyderabad got a chance to interact with Manikanta, and we quickly asked him about his story and this is what he had to say – ” The desire to start a business provoked me to start PAYFIX. With the help of Raghu (co-founder), we ventured into the business of instant payments through PAYFIX. We made an M-POS application using which retail stores could convert their sales into a single window counter for all consumer services like airtime top-ups, utility bills and few government services. The facilitation of accepting payments was done in association with QIWI.  At the age of 21, being a drop-out from college, I was able to convince QIWI to get associated with my startup. Today, with a team of 7 passionate people with hardly any previous experience in this field, we have been successful in providing a platform for over 600+ retail outlets to sign up with us and we were able to generate a GMV of Rs. 8.31 Cr in the year 2013-14″
Any typical retail outlet becomes the point of sale for Shoptap. To achieve this, Shoptap appoints VLE’s (Village Level Entrepreneurs) who further appoint retailers under their network. For every sale that happens through ShopTap, a retailer can earn upto 3% on the product cost and VLE earns 1.5% on the product cost. Once the order is placed, ShopTap takes care of the delivery and return logistics.
The USP of ShopTap is their timely delivery and post-sale support offered to consumers. At Shoptap, they use POS (Point-Of-Sale) mapping, a revolutionary method that enables 7-hours express delivery upon receiving an order. Post-sale support is their add-on strength where retail outlets act as point of contact for consumers. For all product related queries and issues, ShopTap’s retailers take the responsibility of acting upon and resolving the issues from the ground level.
By 2020, the team  aims to transform 1 million small town retail stores into smart stores. They want to leverage retailers with technology and make their business easy and convenient.
Kudos to the team of ShopTap for being able to identify the problems of retailers and give them an offline solution to their major issue of high costing in retail business.