“The rate at which early-stage SaaS companies are growing in India has been unprecedented in the recent past” – By, Mr. Rajiv Kumar, Founder & CEO, StoreHippo

Which are the industries demonstrating the fastest SaaS adoption in India? What are the new industries to watch out for in the forthcoming days?

The adoption of SaaS has been on a rising spree since the past few years. Amidst this the on-going pandemic has further accelerated the process. SaaS is omnipresent and it can be seen in almost every industry right from FMCG, Grocery to Cements and Paints.

Observing the trend and with the rising demand and adoption of SaaS, a wide variety of industries are in the queue to actively adopt the technology. Industries including Agri-tech, Ed-Tech, Health-Tech along with automobiles and spare parts and building materials have started demonstrating the implementation of SaaS to a great extent which is likely to grow manifold from here on in the coming years.

What according to you are the top trends driving the growth of SaaS adoption?

Well, if we talk about the upcoming trends in the world of SaaS, the list would be a long one. However few of the most prominent trends that are fueling the adoption of SaaS in the current times include:

• Greater flexibility and fully integrated solutions to build out of box solutions for large brands
• Mobile optimization and solutions driven by mobile-first principle
• Better BI(business intelligence) for strategic planning and marketing
• API driven solutions and extreme personalization
• Vertical SaaS to offer customizable, cost-effective, industry-specific solutions
• White Label SaaS for brands

Is StoreHippo seeing an increase in high-growth, early-stage SaaS companies in India? What do you think is contributing to the expanding number of SaaS companies in India?

The rate at which early-stage SaaS companies are growing in India has been unprecedented in the recent past. Even for us at StoreHippo, we have been able to record some impressive numbers and we witnessed an increase of about 60-70% in the number of inquiries on our platform between March to July.

The reasons significantly contributing towards the expanding numbers of SaaS companies in the country are multiple. The eagerness to go digital has majorly contributed to the growth of SaaS companies offering solutions to run online business functions. Furthermore, the availability of a conducive ecosystem for offering solutions to SMBs as well as enterprises is another factor boosting the growth of SaaS companies in India.

From Kiranas to large enterprises, a high inclination towards digital channels is being observed these days. What are the prominent reasons driving this shift? What are your views on the same?

India has emerged as one of the world’s most promising internet markets, with the second-largest internet user base globally. The increasing number of online shoppers presents a huge growth opportunity for e-commerce and retail companies to explore and utilize as a key component for business growth. With e-commerce at its peak, a high number of players, be it kiranas or large enterprises, are opting for digital services.

While there are multiple reasons for this advancement, the most prominent one is the changing customer preference. As a result of Covid-19 and consequential lockdowns, there has been a significant increase in the number of people shopping online as they actively prefer buying their desired items from the same confines of their homes.

Furthermore, through their exceptional features; these digital channels also lend an opportunity to tap new markets and thus reach a larger audience. Not just this, the digital channels and e-commerce platforms also pave the way for cost effectiveness and improved logistics services.

Reduced time to market with customizable turnkey ecommerce solutions like StoreHippo along with easy to build innovative solutions is also some of the benefits of online selling. Additionally, e-commerce platforms also offer better marketing ROI and conversions by facilitating selling on multiple channels.

How StoreHippo is offering a plethora of choices through various payment options and helping in implementing customized checkouts?

StoreHippo offers 60+ integrated domestic and international payment gateways for its clients. Along with these, StoreHippo also covers a full spectrum of agile payment methods which include Apple Pay, subscription-based payments, pay-later options, marketplace payments, UPI, wallets, offline payments, COD etc. Our clients can easily customize their checkout by using a combination of these payment methods to offer frictionless payment options to their customers. We also offer full support for multi-currency and location-based payment method selection.

How Ecommerce SaaS platforms are helping traditional D2C brands to beat the pandemic woes? Any specific references for StoreHippo?

India’s e-commerce industry is on the path of exponential growth with D2C selling expected to be the next big thing in the market. With competition intensifying every passing day and brands coming up with more advanced options, it is important for brands to fortify their D2C supply chain with logistics technology to fulfill dynamic customer expectations.

D2C e-commerce is an emerging Omni-channel trend among retailers across categories including apparel, electronics, FMCG, furniture, grocery, and lifestyle goods to name a few. These days, an increasing number of Indian retail brands are adopting the D2C strategy to sell and deliver merchandise directly to consumers without depending on any third party which is indeed helping them establish a strong presence in the industry.

Furthermore, with plug and play ecommerce solutions like ours, adopting D2C and reaching customers across various channels has become easier for the brands. Even with the new generation of multi-channel ecommerce, brands can easily focus on catering to the specific needs of their customers.

In simpler terms, with the right content and marketing and a good ecommerce solution, brands can keep their customers loyal and reach new markets which were earlier a little difficult to tap.

Overall StoreHippo has been able to enhance the business operations of over 2000+ brands catering to various verticals including a prominent multinational paints brand.

How many businesses are using StoreHippo? Which are your biggest geographies?

Currently, we are serving more than 2000 businesses across 30+ geographies. Our user base is spread across various geographies across the world with India and the Middle East being two of our biggest markets. 

How do you stand out from the competition?

StoreHippo has been launched with an objective to offer built-in turnkey solutions to B2B, B2C, multi vendor marketplaces, multi-store e-commerce along with the brands looking for D2C solutions and businesses planning to foray into the international markets.

Furthermore, StoreHippo is a well-rounded platform that is mobile ready and does not require any additional apps or plug-ins which accounts to be one of the differentiating factors.

Additionally, with headless commerce as our core design principle, we easily offer Omni-channel selling solutions to our clients. With these features, we have been able to carve a niche for ourselves even despite the intensive competition in this space.

What is next for StoreHippo?

We keep adding new features as per the business requirements of our customers on a regular basis and we have a bunch of features in our pipeline too.

We are expanding on our Enterprise Integrations with ERP systems and advanced OMS features for high-volume merchants. We are also adding to our list of advanced reports and adding more channels to make the process flow seamless for our merchants.

How has the on-going pandemic affected the business operations of StoreHippo?

The pandemic has definitely affected our business. Just like others, it was an unforeseen dilemma for us as well. However, we have been fortunate enough to be amongst the few who saw positive momentum during the pandemic.

Luckily, we recorded a significant growth within the range of 50-70% during that phase. In fact, we also managed to add some of the most renowned names from different industry verticals to our bouquet of clients.