Hi everybody!
To begin with I’ll just give a small intro about myself. I’m a wanna be Entrepreneur who is enjoying each day being a Businessman and is a Professionally qualified Chartered Accountant. Ok thats weird to me too!! :p
I worked in the industry for a year post qualifying. And after much protest from my dad and people around me I quit my job and plunged into business. Not my family business but on my own. (I still don’t understand why are people so shocked to see a CA turn into a businessman? And the scariest comment being – Dhanda hi karna tha toh itni padhai kyon ki? (If you wanted to do business then why did you study so much?) ). Nevermind, but coming from a business family, there’s a bit of a cushion that you have on entering business.
Presently I am into Retail business of Veneers, Laminates, wallpapers, floorings, plywood, interior related decorative items.
I got into business hoping to either take it to a big level or wait for my eureka moment. So after spending about a year doing what I am doing I stumled upon a thought.
In a time where fashion and tastes are changing so fast. There is this huge problem of dead stock (Stock which is either too old/ out of fashion/ not required), which the manufacturers or wholesellers are ready to sell at a lesser price “Sale” “Huge discounts”. And at the same time there are buyers who want to buy bulk (builders/ contractors) or even small quantity (consumers with a small budget) at cheap prices. “If only there was a Market place where both could meet”.
To give a few examples
-Importers import wallpapers in huge quantities of various designs and various colours. As fashion changes or after a few months, the importers are left with good quantities of wallpapers which are dead stock (similarly with laminates).
– Apparels/footwear retailers and wholesalers have huge stocks of their goods. And again after few months or years they are left with huge quantities of dead stocks that they want to get rid of.
Which they offer at huge Discounts “Sale”.
The idea is to basically create a Market place model where goods are listed alongwith the quantity available and prices. As an when a consumer places an order, the goods get shipped from the dealer to the consumer.
Why I feel this will work?
1. Who doesn’t like to purchase at cheaper prices?
2. Costs are increasing like crazy, buyers would be glad if they find stuff they need at less costs.
3. If ideas like olx, quickr, ebay are helping people and are so useful where goods are generally used and second hand and old. Then this is something which is still new and unused.
4. Dead stock sale would help the owners to free space and receive stuck up funds (both are badly needed by any business).
5. Its a very unorganised market with very few online players. The few online players are in the Readymade furniture business (fabfurnish, IKEA), but my concentration is on the Raw materials required for making interiors. (Future plan would be to start including other sectors as well).
I could be wrong at places please correct me.
Challenges:
1. Going the ecommerce way for a Non- tech guy like me. (All I know is its ecommerce, I still have to figure out the technical challenges to come).
2. Collecting data from a lot of people to put up on the site. (Wholesellers, unorganised retailers, factories).
3. Quality control of the dead stock to be sold.
4. Would people be willing to buy stuff that is old (considered as rejects).
5. Any other challenges that you think I may face?
So I need help for the following:
1. Does this idea really make sense? (Be brutal in your feedback.)
2. What are sectors/ industry/goods that can be covered as work progresses. Eg: Interiors related, Apparels, Footwear, Imitation jewellery, etc.
3. If any of this does make sense, then what should be the way ahead from here?
The current status of this entire deal is that, I have started collecting information of wholesalers who are ready to participate (in fact it does happen in many ways in offline mode). I have not yet invested actual money into this directly. But I have put in a bit of time and effort to figure out if people will be ready to participate.
Cheers to life. (y)
asha chaudhry
hi dipesh,
in india this idea will always work; how not to be a “just another site selling dead stock” will be your challenge.
– we have lots of ecom/social com experts on trhs – pls go through posts in our ecom section – you will meet all of them there! zepo, sell mojo etc etc.
– we have lots of techies on trhs – so that also shouldn’t be a problem. meet a techie who had no business before he joined trhs – read his story here – https://www.therodinhoods.com/forum/topics/my-roll-call-to-destiny
– as far as being a CA and doing so much padhai is concerned – we have quite a few CAs who are running their own businesses 🙂
https://www.therodinhoods.com/forum/topics/3-mistakes-of-my-journey-from…
https://www.therodinhoods.com/profile/HardikShah
all the best!
Amit Kumar Chattopadhyay
Hi Dipesh,
Congratulations on Entrepreneur entry and welcome to the gang. There are many in this community who have left job like you. You have a great idea – liquidations (commonly called stocklots in India) market is a huge opportunity waiting for entrepreneurs to explore. You can certainly work out better online business model which will add value to present system, provide more options to merchants as well as generate profit. However, you need to have great traction with manufacturers and stocklot dealers. We are working on wholesale e-commerce for sometime (including stocklots) – please see bazara2z.com We could build bazara2z and make it functional because of our previous work in b2b space for years. Our portal infobanc.com gives access to manufacturers and vanik.com gives access to wholesalers/retailers/dealers/distributors etc. Leveraging these strengths, we have started bazara2z recently and have received very good response so far. The business model has even received Red Herring Award for wholesale bazaar technology this year. Being bootstrapped, growth is slow but steady. We hope to reach breakeven point very soon. If you are really interested to discuss more – please contact me at amit@infobanc.com
Best Regards
Amit
Kapil
Supereb Idea Dipesh.
You can check tiles market also. There are huge dead stock in ceramic industry.
Kapil
Dipesh
Thank u so much for your valuable feedback.. 🙂
And thank u for all the links.. will look up all of them..
Dipesh
Hi Amit,
Wow!
Thank u so much.. this was so insightful.. will surely be interested in discussing this further. Will write to you very soon. Thanks again.
Dipesh
Thank u kapil. Will keep in mind.
asha chaudhry
dipesh,
just read your fb comment on alok’s page – waiting for your expert suggestions on how we can improve our “messed up & untidy site” . we are on NING in case you are wondering….
ps: did you find it messed up ‘coz you were unable to add an image without guidance? or some other reason?? we encourage constructive feedback.
“Dipesh Jain Sir I agree with Bhaumik…
I had always used the rodinhoods from my phone so never noticed.. recently I had to use it from my laptop.. its too messed up and untidy..”
Dipesh
Hi mam,
Ill just leave you a message in your inbox.
PS: im not an expert. 🙂
Amit Shroff
Dear Dipesh,
In India Discount sells! People are not bothered if the stock or design is old, as long as it is fresh and available in great discount they would buy it.
Don’t considering looking at market like electronics, clothing etc since website like flipkart, myntra, jabong etc are already doing it. They are buying dead stock in huge discount and selling it online.
Now if you consider raw material for products for interior design etc, look at following points before you consider going online.
My personal observation is eCommerce might work well for a B2C client and you need to be selective in terms of your offering. We are an experience professional for building custom eCommerce store, please look at http://www.72interactive.in for more details or visit our recent projects:
https://www.printawallpaper.com
https://www.theboxerstore.co.in
https://www.kapoorlampshade.com
https://ccds.checkbeta.com
Regards,
amit
Dipesh
Dear Amit,
Wow. Thank you so much.
Those are some really practical world problems that I need to consider.
And great work on those websites. I would love to get in touch with you very soon.
Regards.