[Interview] Saahil Goel – CEO and Co-Founder at Shiprocket, India’s leading tech-enabled logistics and fulfillment platform

Saahil Goel – Indian Entrepreneur, CEO and Co-Founder at Shiprocket

At Sugermint Media, our aim is to bring to our entrepreneurs community some of the inspiring and motivational stories from the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

As part of this endeavour, we invited yet another passionate entrepreneur Saahil Goel – CEO and Co-Founder at Shiprocket for an exclusive interview with us.

Services offered by Shiprocket

Saahil Goel: As India’s leading tech-enabled logistics and fulfillment platform, Shiprocket offers all-encompassing, end-to-end last-mile shipping and fulfillment services.

We are India’s most used e-commerce logistics provider, and we also provide shipping software solutions for world-class courier services.

Warehousing, fulfillment, last-mile delivery, and inventory management facilities are some of our main offerings.

Enabling merchants and brands to grow their e-commerce business and optimize costs, Shiprocket offers a Courier Recommendation Engine to reduce RTO (Return to Origin) and process bulk orders in just a few clicks.

Further, with real-time order tracking, and easy pick-up for return orders, sellers can provide their end customers with an unparalleled shopping experience.

Leveraging cutting-edge technology, we offer automated shipping solutions integrated to all major e-commerce channels such as Amazon, Shopify, Magento, etc., with order pickup available from multiple locations.

Besides, Shiprocket’s seamless payment gateways ensure an impeccable customer experience. We have launched numerous products, and we are continuing to expand the same to bring all logistics and shipping solutions under a single umbrella.  

How did you get the idea/concept for your business?

Saahil Goel: Saahil, co-founded BigFoot Retail Solutions Pvt. Ltd. in 2012 to turn his dream into a reality. The idea came to him when he started to sympathize with SMBs and identified a gap in the Indian market that was restricting SMEs to sell online.

There was information asymmetry in the market and most SMEs were falling victims to unscrupulous web development agencies which were charging huge amounts of money from these merchants to build websites that didn’t work.

He built a company that filled this gap and helped small players to come online. And, this was the start of his entrepreneurial journey with a website-building platform for SMEs called Kartrocket.

While running Kartrocket successfully, he identified a huge opportunity in the shipping part of the order journey.

He realized that the real heavy lifting happens after an order is placed and that was the beginning of Shiprocket. A single platform to ease sellers’ woes.

To ease shipping, the brand aggregated leading courier partners on a single platform that helps sellers to choose and compare all shipping options at once.

Today, the company has over 17+ leading partners delivering to 220+ countries. The company has also ace penetration by delivering to 29000 pin codes.

What services or products do you offer?

Saahil Goel: Shiprocket is a single platform to ease sellers’ woes. To ease shipping Shiprocket has aggregated leading courier partners on a single platform that helps sellers to choose and compare all shipping options at once.

It is providing seamless logistics solutions to all the D2C sellers by suggesting the best logistics mode tailored according to their needs and providing seller benefits like discounts, early COD, etc.

It aims to democratize e-commerce in India and support small and medium businesses.  The organization has added value for its customers by providing products, solutions, and services that fulfill their needs and expectations.

Shiprocket is on a mission to create a data platform that connects retailers, carriers, and consumers across national and international locations.

Shiprocket is an operating system for online retail that has solutions across the post-purchase journey of a consumer.

Multiple products such as logistics, fulfillment, packaging,and customer experience solutions allow online retailers to offer customer experiences similar to large marketplaces. 

In addition to offering Shipping Services, Shiprocket also provides a technology stack to help retailers integrate their shopping websites on Shopify, Magento, Woocommerce, Zoho, and others for workflow, inventory, and order management. 

What is unique about your business?

Saahil Goel: Through Shiprocket’s bouquet of solutions and features, we provide e-commerce entrepreneurs from across the country with an automated platform that helps them process forward and return orders efficiently at reduced costs, prices that are significantly cheaper than the market rate.

The Shiprocket panel has a plethora of features for sellers, including order creation, invoicing, label generation, shipping, order tracking, and return order management, amongst others.

We are the most used e-commerce logistics platform in the country, and it’s primarily due to our versatile offerings that make logistics and fulfillment a seamless process.

What was your mission at the outset?

Saahil Goel: We established Shiprocket as a shipping solutions provider for e-commerce entrepreneurs to sell their products online without hassles.

Besides the delivery aspect, we wanted to make shipping a cost-effective, streamlined process compared to other channels. Today, we have over 1 lakh + happy sellers shipping throughout the country and across borders.

As we continue to grow rapidly and look out into the future, we expect to add more value to SMBs by providing every element of the e-commerce stack that they require to enhance the experience for merchants and their end customers.

When it comes to my vision for the platform, my overarching goal is to create an impact on everyone I work with – my team members, customers, and the overall logistics ecosystem. I envision creating a platform that outlives me and generates immense value for all stakeholders.

Your company’s goals?

Saahil Goel: We are constantly growing and enhancing our services, and with each passing day, Shiprocket is impacting our e-commerce sellers’ lives by making logistics quick and frictionless for them.

Shiprocket’s goal is to be recognized as India’s leading post-order experience platform, encompassing a gamut of tech-enabled services related to logistics and order fulfillment.

We are currently on track to double the number of active sellers on our platform in the next few quarters and make Shiprocket the go-to solution for all things logistics and fulfillment.

We are also looking to provide omnichannel solutions to sellers, thereby bridging the gap between online and offline selling.

What have been some of your failures, and what have you learned from them?

Saahil Goel: Product market fit was a key challenge we faced when starting the company. Our first product was a website building platform which was launched at a time when online selling was predominantly done on marketplaces and direct to consumer was not the buzz word that it is today.

We quickly realized that the biggest challenge being faced by our customers was in the post-purchase cycle where they had no infrastructure to fulfill orders once they were received on their social media or website.

They relied on Amazon to do all the fulfillment for their marketplace orders but no one was there to help them for their direct orders and the concept of Shiprocket was created to solve this problem.

What made you choose this type of business?

Saahil Goel: With a vision to democratize e-commerce in India and support small and medium businesses, Saahil Goel left his successful job with SDLC Partners (with Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield) in the US and returned to India.

Saahil was always a website enthusiast and has been coding since his early childhood years. Having seen the boom of e-commerce in the US with many merchants building websites on Shopify he wanted to bring this same access to SMEs in India.

His dream was to empower India’s merchants and upscale them to be able to compete with the bigger players by giving them an online platform with a national reach by disrupting the e-commerce space.

How many employees are there in your organization?

Saahil Goel: Currently, we have 600+ workforce in the organization.

How do you build a successful customer base?

Saahil Goel: At Shiprocket we provide a robust customer experience that minimizes the RTO (Return To Origin) rate efficiently and increases profitability for online sellers. Quality for customers is nothing more than just meeting their expectations and looking for ways to improve your customer’s experience.

If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting out, what would it be?

Saahil Goel: There is no better time to be an entrepreneur than today, it’s very important to follow your passion. Success may not look like what you thought it would and can only be achieved if you don’t give up despite failures along the way.

Be prepared to pivot, accept being wrong, and expect everything to fall short of your goals.It won’t be easy, but you will win if you are able to withstand the beating you will receive.

Does your company help the community or society?

Saahil Goel: During the pandemic, free shipping services were made available to NGOs and Non-Profit Organizations asking for assistance during the virus outbreak by Shiprocket as a relief effort. Shiprocket’s free shipping services were available to organizations delivering groceries, medication, medical equipment, and personal protection equipment to hospitals and individuals in need.

Website: https://www.shiprocket.in

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