MAM
ShopClues to get aggressive with its marketing activities
MUMBAI: Looks like the Indian e-commerce businesses are speeding towards rapid transformation. While giants like Flipkart and Amazon are busy making announcements about funding, other players in the space are looking at changing their marketing strategies.
ShopClues, an online marketplace has announced the launch of its end-to-end advertising and branding roadmap to gain top-of-the-mind recall in the Indian e-commerce segment.
The brand has already carved a strong niche for itself in the Indian e-tailing space with over 65,000 merchants powering an extensive selection of 5.3 million products across 3000 listing categories.
It is now ready with a full-fledged branding and mass communication campaign to further its penetration and recall in broader geographies and demographics. To achieve this objective, ShopClues has engaged partners across functions to lead its large-scale consumer engagement campaign.
Enormous Brands, headed by advertising veteran, Ashish Khazanchi, has been appointed as its creative partner. The media planning and buying activities have been assigned to Exposure which is headed by Rajul Kulshrestha. The public relations mandate has been assigned to Value 360 Communications, headed by Kunal Kishore Sinha.
A few months back, the platform got on board Shweta Jain as brand strategy consultant to kick start the accelerated mode of branding and advertising initiatives.
ShopClues co-founder & CMO Radhika Ghai Aggarwal said, “We observed early on that our country has millions of small merchants with interesting products and we Indians love to shop in local bazaars. This is the basic and defining essence of our product. At ShopClues, we’ve built properties like the Sunday flea market, wholesale, cash-before-delivery, factory outlet, keeping the orientation of our shoppers and their comfort zones in mind. We have an approach to merchandising which is unprecedented. Our build-up is focused on extensive unstructured products categories, offerings and unique cataloging.”
ShopClues claims to have spent less than US $10 million to reach the status of India’s fifth largest, while every other company in the top five list has spent an over ten times the amount.
While ShopClues covers a broad range of products, prices, categories, brands, and sellers, it specialises in non-standard categories, unbranded products or less-known brands, smaller merchants, and tier II and tier III cities.
Unstructured products account for over 75 per cent of the Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV). It is thus a combination of a discovery and transaction-enabling engine. In addition to strong traction and a very well-developed marketplace ecosystem, it also has an unmatchable cost advantage and rapidly improving fundamentals – the company is close to gross margin break-even and will be operating margin positive by March 2015.
Brands
Pocket FM elevates Lalit Gangwar to COO to drive global growth
Founding member to lead operations, monetisation and expansion across markets
MUMBAI: Pocket FM has elevated Lalit Gangwar to chief operating officer, tasking the founding team member with leading global business operations as the company sharpens its international growth strategy.
In his new role, Gangwar will oversee end-to-end operations across markets, including growth, monetisation and execution for the company’s audio business. The appointment comes as Pocket FM looks to strengthen its operating foundation and build a more predictable, scalable global business.
Gangwar has been closely involved in shaping the company’s trajectory from its early days. He played a key role in building the growth and marketing playbook in India, helping the platform scale to over 150 million users within its first year and establish a strong foothold in the audio storytelling category.
He later led Pocket FM’s expansion into the United States, where he set up teams, defined market strategy and drove scale, contributing significantly to the company’s international ambitions.
Pocket FM co-founder and CEO Rohan Nayak said, “Lalit has been central to Pocket FM’s journey from the very beginning. He has built our growth engine and scaled our business across markets.” He added that the company’s focus on nurturing internal talent makes Gangwar a natural choice to lead the next phase.
Gangwar said, “Pocket FM has always been driven by a simple belief that powerful stories can travel across borders and create meaningful impact.” He noted that the company will continue to focus on scaling markets, investing in AI-led storytelling and strengthening monetisation.
As COO, Gangwar is expected to bring greater operating discipline while building systems, talent and processes to support long-term growth.
With leadership continuity and a clear global focus, Pocket FM appears to be turning the page to its next chapter, one that aims to take its storytelling playbook well beyond home turf.
