Company Profile is an initiative by ListMyStartUp to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Shiprocket.
eCommerce is growing like never before. People are preferring to buy online instead of going to the market. On the other hand, brands are providing better offers and exclusive launches online to attract more buyers. It helps the brand to save on many kinds of expenses. However, many small businesses are still not able to afford to ship their products to different places. This makes them lose the opportunity to grow on a global level. This is what Shiprocket visions to solve in India.
We interviewed Saahil Goel to know about their vision, future plans, startup story, hiring strategy, services, and other factors that helped in the success of Shiprocket.
Shiprocket - Company Highlights
- Company Name-Shiprocket
- Headquarters-New Delhi, India
- Sector-Ecommerce, Logistics, Supply Chain Management
- Founder-Gautam Kapoor, Saahil Goel, Vishesh Khurana and Akshay Ghulati
- Founded-2017
- Total Funding-$354.1 million (June 2022)
- Revenue-$47.96 million (Rs 358.01 crore in FY21)
- Valuation-$930 million (2022)
- Parent Organization-BigFoot Retail solution
- Website-shiprocket.in
Shiprocket - About & How It Works?
Shiprocket is a tech-enabled logistic platform that provides affordable plans to MSMEs so that they can come online and sell anywhere they want. Along with logistic service, Shiprocket provides many benefits like warehousing, packaging, and other related services. Moreover, their platform includes many other integrations which help the merchants and sellers to manage the deliveries. The brand delivers to 220 countries and over 27,000 pin codes across India at the lowest rates. Shiprocket uses the software made by its own teams to ensure the smooth flow of the organization's day-to-day functions.
Shiprocket rates
Shiprocket has 4 different plans operating with varying rates. Here are the plans along with Shiprocket rates:
LITE - Shiprocket LITE is a free shipping plan of Shiprocket that has 0 months as the minimum signup period.
BASIC - The Basic plan of Shiprocket costs Rs 1000 per month. It has 3 months as the minimum signup period.
ADVANCED - The Advanced plan of Shiprocket costs Rs 2000 per month. It has 3 months as the minimum signup period.
PRO - The Pro plan of Shiprocket costs Rs 3000 per month. It has 3 months as the minimum signup period.
Market Details
The current global market value of the logistics industry is over $50,000,000,000 (50 billion), as per recent reports.
Shiprocket - Vision & Mission
Shiprocket’s vision is to be recognized as a leading D2C enabler, helping small and medium merchants grow their business in the eCommerce space. The future plan is to become India’s leading post-order experience platform, encompassing a gamut of tech-enabled services related to logistics and order fulfilment.
To accomplish this objective, we have already launched several AI-powered offerings such as smart packaging (Shiprocket Packaging), eCommerce fulfillment and warehousing solution (Shiprocket Fulfillment), hyperlocal delivery (Shiprocket Saral), full-stack website development (Shiprocket Social) and more. -Saahil Goel, Co-Founder of Shiprocket
Shiprocket’s core belief is aligned with serving small and medium-sized sellers of the country. They have set their vision on helping the Indian SMBs by taking their business online and competing with larger players like Amazon. Since its inception, Shiprocket has always focused on building and innovating for its sellers. Their long-term vision is to become India’s leading post-order experience platform, encompassing a myriad of fulfilment services such as high-quality packaging, eCommerce fulfilment and warehousing, hyperlocal delivery, website development, check-out enhancement, and more.
Shiprocket - Founders & Team
Saahil Goel, Akshay Ghulati, Gautam Kapoor, Gautam Kapoor and Vishesh Khurana are the co-founders of Shiprocket.
Shiprocket Co-Founders & Team
Saahil Goel, CEO & Co-Founder, Shiprocket
Saahil is an MBA and MS from the University of Pittsburgh (USA). He started his career as a Business Analyst at Max Life Insurance. After this, he started working as a Technology and Process Consultant for SDLC Partners (with Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield). He was also a part of the founder's teams of Kasper Consulting.
Role in Shiprocket - Saahil Goel is fondly referred to as the De facto CPO, given his passion for products, growth hacking and technology. His chief responsibilities include questioning everything that impacts the business, breaking existing barriers and practising and developing unconventional solutions from the ground up. Along with the overall management of the company, he actively heads product strategy, user experience and growth initiatives.
Gautam Kapoor
Gautam Kapoor received his BBA in Business from Western International University (USA). He was previously a part of his family business in industrial products import and distribution and worked with several renowned German engineering brands such as Bosch and Sick.
Role in Shiprocket - Gautam is at the helm of running logistics execution, operations, and end-to-end strategy. As the co-founder, he helps define the culture and vision of the company.
Gautam and I are childhood friends, but we were working in different industries back then. I was working with Max Life Insurance as a Business Analyst, whereas Gautam, coming from an operational and commercial background, was working in the industrial automation sector.
- Saahil Goel, Co-Founder of Shiprocket
Vishesh Khurana
Vishesh Khurana received his BBA with a specialization in Marketing from Amity Business School. Vishesh previously worked in the capacity of COO and Founder at Mobiz Infotech Pvt. Ltd., and successfully exited his first startup, following an all-cash acquisition.
Role in Shiprocket - Vishesh is actively involved in overseeing seller acquisition for the platform. He is driven to empower India’s burgeoning small and mid-sized merchants by providing a go-to destination for them to launch and manage their business online.
Akshay Ghulati
A graduate of Wharton Business School in Economics, Akshay also received his MBA from Harvard Business School. Previously, he has worked with renowned eCommerce and technology companies like Amazon, AT Kearney and Parthenon Group. Furthermore, he has also served as the senior manager for the PAN-Europe marketplace at Amazon. Along with being the Co-founder of Shiprocket, Ghulati has also served as a Director of Wigzo Technologies since January 2022.
Role in Shiprocket - Akshay Ghulati leads strategy, marketing, and customer success teams at Shiprocket. His focus is on executing the brand’s vision to make Shiprocket India’s leading fulfilment technology platform for SMEs.
Akshay Ghulati had joined Shiprocket in early 2016 as the Chief Business Officer. Over the years, we could see him truly demonstrating a founder mindset by committing to build Shiprocket into India’s leading logistics platform, right from the start. His persistent dedication and a high level of ownership towards projects resulted in him being elevated to Co-Founder's status.
Shiprocket has hired Tanmay Kumar to make him the CFO of the company, as of January 4, 2022. Kumar has over 22 years of experience in FMCG and retail domains and will look over Investor Relations, Fundraising, and M & A along with leading the finance, legal and secretarial teams at Shiprocket.
Current Company Size - Currently, Shiprocket has over 400 people working in all the departments globally.
Work Culture - All of Shiprocket’s teams are currently working remotely. And they know that in a remote setup where technology is all they have to connect with each other and get things done, it can be challenging to achieve the perfect work-life balance. Hence, besides the commitment towards office hours, all of their teams are encouraged to give ample time to their personal lives, as well. Also, sometimes, one may feel a bit secluded when not actively working from the office with colleagues. However, their Human Resources department always provides something to look forward to during the week. Especially in the times of COVID-19, they're sticking together like a team through engaging virtual sessions like group meditation, talent showcase, Zumba, sit-down comedy, home fitness sessions and more.
Hiring Funda - When hiring for any team, Shiprocket ensures that the candidate must synchronously fit with the organization’s working culture. Besides analyzing their skills, education, and experience for a particular role, they also examine their ability and willingness to grow with the company, and whether they are adequately aligned with the vision of the company.
Shiprocket - Name, Tagline and Logo
Shiprocket visions to move their merchant's business in the up direction with a high velocity, just like a rocket do. Hence, the name Shiprocket came to fruition.
Shiprocket - Services & Products
Shiprocket provides efficient and timely doorstep delivery to the customers. Shiprocket Social comes with a pre-integrated logistics dashboard that allows any merchant to ship products across 27,000+ pin codes PAN India and 220 countries globally. To enhance this automated delivery mechanism, this eCommerce logistics solution comes with a choice of 17+ courier partners like BlueDart, FedEx, DHL, Delhivery, etc., and an AI-powered tool, CORE (Courier Recommendation Engine) that makes optimum use of data to suggest the right courier partner to the merchant on the basis of delivery time, cost and the best rated on the list. Besides this, some of the other features that help the merchant to provide an extraordinary delivery experience to their customers and hence, build a proper retail brand are, real-time order tracking, early COD, easy returns, SMS and Email notifications, non-delivery updates, shipping rate calculator, automatic inventory sync and more. The Shiprocket rate calculator is a special add-on by Shiprocket, which allows businesses and individuals to calculate their shipping rates based on the product dimensions and area code.
As a full-stack eCommerce logistics platform, their brand enables sellers to bring their business to an online setup by creating a store and enlisting products free of cost. This can be done using one of their undertakings, Shiprocket Social, which allows any merchant to navigate through the world of social selling with ease through free features like Facebook shop, payment gateways, bulk upload of products, personalized coupon codes, sales tracking dashboard, etc.
To heighten the delivery experience even further for the customer, the merchants can use another one of our offerings, Shiprocket Packaging. It provides high-quality packaging solutions that are accessible to all, regardless of the size of their business. These packaging options are cost-effective, made with the finest material, help reduce weight-related discrepancies and reduce the manual effort of the seller by providing an automated inventory tracking feature.
As opposed to enterprise business, it is quite challenging for a small or medium-sized business to use a proper warehousing model as it can be an expensive function. To address this pain point, they introduced an eCommerce fulfilment and warehousing solution - Shiprocket Fulfillment. It is a flexible offering that helps the seller manage sudden order volume spikes during busy times of the year. With end-to-end automation, there are few chances of manual error. Hence, it reduced weight-related issues and lesser return orders. Moreover, the seller gets to provide faster delivery to their customer and do all of this at a nominal price, with no lock-in period.
Shiprocket also offers intra-city speedy delivery through Shiprocket Saral. Shiprocket Saral is a hyperlocal delivery aggregator, providing the services of expert hyperlocal partners such as Dunzo, Shadowfax, and Wefast within a distance radius of 50 km. This service can be availed in a cost-effective manner, where the merchant gets to offer several payment modes to the customer and provide order tracking for greater transparency.
Shiprocket - Business & Revenue Model
Shiprocket is a logistics software service provider that follows an asset-light model. Being a logistics aggregation platform, Shiprocket brings multiple logistics service providers together. With this, it aims to help the users (e-commerce sellers) choose the right courier service provider for their needs.
What Shiprocket does is offer an automated interface, which helps connect eCommerce sellers with the right courier service provider. It is important to note here that Shiprocket doesn't play any part in the actual pickup and delivery of the shipments because that is again taken care of by the courier service provider.
Shiprocket makes money from every shipment that is enabled/moved through its platform. Along with that, it also extends fee-based subscription options for medium-large sellers, which gives them negotiated shipping rates, numerous e-commerce channel integrations, and urgent support.
Shiprocket also provides integration facilities with eCommerce platforms like Amazon, eBay, and other online or eCommerce store management platforms like Shopify, opencart, and more. Along with these, Shiprocket also offers numerous other fee-based value-added services, which include:
Shiprocket Fulfilment: Shiprocket extends warehousing services/storage facilities for the sellers, which helps them to deliver shipments faster to their consumers.
Early COD: Shiprocket offers an Early COD (cash on delivery) service, which is a paid (fee-based) service via which a seller can get cash remittance as early as just in 2 days from the delivery date of the order.
Packaging Store: Shiprocket also operates an online store along with all the above services. In such a store, the company sells packaging materials.
Shiprocket's metrics, shipments, revenue, and monthly active merchants have almost 3Xed on a year-on-year basis. The brand is recognized for its lowest shipping rates, where domestic shipping starts at as low as INR 22/500 grams.
The company earns its revenue on every shipment that goes through its network and from the subscription license fees. Also, there are other value-added technology services that the merchants can avail such as warehousing and fulfillment, packaging, fintech, etc., adding to their revenue.
Shiprocket - Marketing
The marketing campaigns at Shiprocket are designed to add value to businesses of all sizes, particularly Direct to Consumer brands. Their brand marketing strategy is inclined towards addressing the pain points of the target market, instead of focusing on the promotion of the product solely.
Moreover, to enable proper dissemination of campaigns at a regional level, a lot of their efforts are put into designing vernacular content that finds its due space in the lives of their audiences. It consequently helps them to enable the growth and expansion of their business. This way, they accomplish customer acquisition and retention at a greater level.
Shiprocket - Launching
While launching Shiprocket, Saahil and other co-founders faced many problems. Saahil describes his journey as follows:
When I flew back to India from the USA, I had a very demotivating recruitment experience. Finally, I realized that I couldn’t be working on our idea on a part-time basis. I had to move back to India once and for all and give all of my time and hard work into making it a success. So that’s what I did!
When I came back to India, we bootstrapped our company, spent about 20 days connecting with a few friends and talking to contacts that could help us get engineers to build the product. The thing that worked for us was that we somewhat had a clear idea of what we wanted. We had already started talking to the customers. I was building the initial few websites myself, and that would bring in enough money to pay for rent, our team’s salaries and other utilities, but it wasn’t scalable, as such. We were doing custom work back then, but it was essential to fund our actual product build.
A year later, we had a very localized, highly functional product on our hands, comprising a shopping cart and we saw some success with it, as well. Finally, we had our first 100 merchants on the platform, which was a big deal for us! And the fact that at least 100 people were using our services gave us immense hope.
- Saahil Goel, Co-Founder of Shiprocket.
Shiprocket - Growth and Revenue
The challenges you face in the 100 to 10000 customers' journey are very different and require a different mindset and approach. For Shiprocket, the best hack has been to always hire the best people who can help solve these problems at scale. Moreover, they keep their employees always motivated to extract the best results out of their efforts.
As founders, we still have our ear to the ground, but we have to make sure that we have the best people to solve the operational challenges as we take on more strategic roles
- Saahil Goel, Co-Founder of Shiprocket.
Here's a look at some of the prominent growth milestones that Shiprocket has successfully scaled:
- It has earned the name of India's leading eCommerce shipping solution
- Shiprocket claims to be one of the fastest logistics brands to turn profitable within 24 months
- Shiprocket has been trusted by over 1 lakh brands and entrepreneurs
- It boasts of having over 1 lakh satisfied sellers
- Shiprocket manages to deliver 2 lakh+ shipments daily
- The company covers over 29,000 pin codes
- Shiprocket currently serves over 220 countries
It has 17+ courier partners, which include reputed brands like Bluedart, Xpressbees, Delhivery, DTDC, Shadowfax, Ecom Express, and more.
Shiprocket is growing 3X year on year. Some of Shiprocket's notable clients include Dr. Vaidya’s, MamaEarth, Gillette, Boat, mCaffeine, Nappa Dori, Relaxo, Proline, The Beer Cafe, Bira, Bodycare, Da Milano, Cureveda, and more. The company was valued at $930 mn, when last recorded on February 4, 2022.
Shiprocket Financials
The operating revenue of the company has witnessed a growth equal to 122%, which grew to Rs 358.01 crore during FY21, which was recorded at Rs 161.19 crore in FY20.
Shiprocket - Challenges
The operation during the pandemic has been the biggest challenge for the company in recent times. Since the beginning, they have had a strong office-based work culture. And since they operate out of a single office in Delhi, the team was not prepared for a WFH culture with their employees spread across the country.
Shiprocket almost doubled its team strength during the pandemic. However, it has been a significant challenge for them to hire and onboard so many new people without any physical interaction.
Also, the lack of working in a physical space makes it more challenging for their new hires to understand the company culture and develop a bonding with their colleagues. Nevertheless, they have worked hard to create an environment where the employees can digitally interact.
When Shiprocket was launched, its shopping cart product was for the MSME market in India. The company predicted that as it was trending in the west. However, it later realised that here, the market was quite different and demanded products that came with pure convenience
Shiprocket - Advisors and Mentors
The investors of Shiprocket play an important role in mentoring them through the startup journey.
Key mentors of Shiprocket are:
- Pankaj Makkar from Bertelsmann India Investments
- Rajan Mehra from Nirvana Ventures
- Arjun Sethi from Tribe Capital
- Teruhide Sato from Beenext
Shiprocket - Awards & Recognitions
Shiprocket was recently awarded the BW Businessworld Techtors Award for being the 'Top Tech Companies to Watch Out for' Under the "Aggregator/Listing" category.
Shiprocket - Competitors
Shiprocket has quite a few competitors operating in the same space out of which the company has already acquired its rival Pickrr. Some other Shiprocket competitors include:
- ClickPost
- ShipKaro
- ShypLite
Shiprocket - Future Plans
Shiprocket’s head office is based in New Delhi. Their undertaking, Shiprocket Fulfillment, an eCommerce fulfilment and warehousing solution for small and medium sellers, has its storage hubs actively operating across 5 major cities: Delhi, Gurgaon, Bangalore, Mumbai, and Kolkata.
Shiprocket has already expanded into associated sectors of fulfilment such as hyperlocal delivery, warehousing, and packaging in 2020. In 2022, the company is planning to provide more services to its merchants around hyperlocal deliveries, customer care, and lending. These are all part of a holistic strategy to make Shiprocket a one-stop solution for eCommerce fulfilment.
Moreover, they are planning to begin expanding internationally in 2022 with a short-term focus on regional expansion. Shiprocket is hiring dedicated teams for this and expects its international business to be a significant contributor to the brand’s growth in the coming years. As of now, they've touched 85,000+ sellers, and their vision is to extend to 250K over the next 2-3 years.
Speaking on the future plans of his company, Shiprocket CEO and Co-founder Saahil Goel said in a statement, “we are on track to launch hyperlocal delivery options which will guarantee low turnaround times (TATs) and best in class SLAs, further cementing our position as the preferred shipping and enablement partner. With the launch of our services in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in November 2021, we have also taken the first step towards expanding our footprint in new geographies”.
Shiprocket is currently planning some new strategic initiatives, including hyperlocal delivery services, growing courier partnerships, fulfilment networks, and global expansion, which will be starting from West Asia. It has also started funding for the same.
Conclusion
Shiprocket is a tech-enabled logistics platform connecting merchants, consumers, and supply chain partners through its eCommerce shipping solutions. All of their offerings aim to make the merchants’ online selling experience as seamless as possible. By making the best use of AI and data, Shiprocket helps to provide maximum cost efficiency per shipment. It helps their sellers’ ventures to remain lucrative and perpetually head toward expansion.
FAQs
What is Shiprocket?
Shiprocket is a tech-enabled logistic platform that provides affordable plans to MSMEs so that they can come online and sell anywhere they want.
What does Shiprocket provide?
Shiprocket provides many benefits like warehousing, packaging, and other related services. Moreover, their platform includes many other integrations, which help the merchants and sellers to manage the deliveries.
What is the founder of Shiprocket?
Saahil Goel, Akshay Ghulati, Gautam Kapoor and Vishesh Khurana are the co-founders of Shiprocket.
What is the use of Shiprocket?
Shiprocket provides its customers the liberty to schedule pickups from anywhere in the country. There is also an option to add multiple addresses and select a different pickup address for every shipment.
Can individuals use Shiprocket?
If you are wondering, "can I use Shiprocket for personal use?" then it is important to know that every individual can use the Shiprocket service but not for any illegal or unauthorized purpose.
Does Shiprocket do packaging?
Shiprocket has an innovative packaging solution for SMEs to optimize fulfillment with quality packaging material and a data-backed platform. Map SKUs with packaging material and reduce weight discrepancies for simplified order management.
Who are the Shiprocket delivery partners?
The Shiprocket delivery partners include reputed courier companies like:
- DTDC
- Delhivery
- Xpressbees
- Bluedart
- Shadowfax
- Ecom Express
What is Shiprocket sign up?
Shiprocket sign up is a process that the users need to go through before they can start using Shiprocket services. The Sign Up process is absolutely free for all.
What is Shiprocket price rate calculator?
Shiprocket rate calculator or Shiprocket price calculator as it is commonly referred to is a rate calculator that helps the users calculate their shipping rates easily just with the help of their area code and the product dimensions. The Shiprocket rate calculator is really effective for Shiprocket ecommerce websites and companies that are eager to know their shipping rates and budget accordingly.
