E192: Abhimanyu Kashikar

Richard Hill [00:00:04]:
Hi there. I'm Richard Hill, the host of eCom@One, and welcome to episode 192. In this episode, I speak with Abhimanyu Kashukar, Co-Founder and CAO at Enchanto. Leading a team of over 300, Abi knows a thing or 2 about ecommerce growth, order, and warehouse management. In this episode, myself and Abhi cover a lot of ground. Hitting those growth plateaus and where to focus, current trends that Abhi's seeing with his successful merchants. Abhi talks us through the tech stack and where to focus for profitability. And of course, so much more on this one.

Richard Hill [00:00:35]:
If you enjoyed this episode, hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you are listening to this podcast. You're always the first to know when a new episode is released. Now let's head over to this fantastic episode. Hi, Abi. How are you doing?

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:00:49]:
Hi. I'm good. Thank you. How are you?

Richard Hill [00:00:52]:
I'm really well, actually. Really well. Really well. Not bad at all. Looking forward to chatting. Obviously, we met at the RX in the centre of Birmingham, not too many months ago now. A couple of well, it'd be about 6, 8 weeks ago. Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:01:05]:
We talk a lot we talk a lot on the show about going to exhibitions in your industry and, obviously, and about how the the people that you meet, can really transform your business potentially. And, we met as a on a chance sort of conversation, didn't we, on a on a on a one of the afternoons? And here we are on the podcast. So welcome to the podcast.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:01:26]:
Great. Great to be here, Richard. And of and, of course, it was a great discussion as well what we had during the analytics. It was really nice to meet you.

Richard Hill [00:01:33]:
Lovely. So I think first things first, introduce yourself to our listeners and how you got into the world of ecommerce.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:01:40]:
Certainly. So, just a quick background. My my name is Abhimanyu Kashikar. I am I'm currently based in the UK. I go by Abhi. So thanks, Richard, for calling me Abhi. It makes it easy. I'm one of the cofounders and CEO at Inchanto.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:01:58]:
At Inchanto, we are basically a SaaS product company. We offer software products for businesses like brands, 3PL, logistics companies, retailers. We actually started our journey, 13 years ago. We just celebrated 13 years on this Monday, 17th June. Started from Singapore, and then today, we have presence in, 11 countries. I moved to the UK, as part of our expansion plan to also take care of the business, into UK as well as Middle East. So started more into technology side when when started with Inchanto, moved into technology, then moved into operations, and now also moving into business. So, I mean, that's what the business side or the entrepreneurship basically puts you into anything and everything, and then you you learn and you you enjoy, all that, all those different strengths that you get into.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:03:04]:
We as a company, we initially started, as a 3PL fulfillment company. Yep. In Singapore, that was strategic for us. Though we from from day 1, we wanted to be a software company, but we didn't want to develop anything in isolation. So we set up the warehouse, started from small warehouse to to a larger warehouse by the time we exited. That give us a huge amount of learning. So that that is still helping us today with our customers, to really talk their language. We are able to understand if like, this morning, I was talking to one of the one of the customers, potential customer, and he explained me the way they are today managing close to around 300 to $400 per day from only a 1,000 square feet, warehouse, kind of warehouse.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:03:56]:
And that is quite amazing, and I can really visualize and and and relate things to it. So so yeah. So that gave us a lot of learning, of course. And then for the last 6 six and a half years, we are now, we've devoted into a pure technology company.

Richard Hill [00:04:12]:
Yeah.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:04:13]:
Prior to Incentive sorry for the long introduction, but No. That's okay. Prior prior to Inchanto, I was into a completely different industry. I was into semiconductors. Oh, okay. So I spent, like, 12 years, in semiconductors working for different companies on different technologies. Yeah. PDMA, GSM, whatnot.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:04:34]:
USB 3.0 is something which I had worked on way back almost 15, 16 years ago. So, yeah, so that that was quite exciting, but, there was always something somewhere in the corner of the heart that wanted to do something, of a problem. And then me and my colleague from my engineering days, we were in touch and we shared the same passion.

Richard Hill [00:04:56]:
Yeah. We thought thought

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:04:57]:
of coming together, and, here we are. And

Richard Hill [00:05:01]:
for 2

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:05:01]:
years down the line now.

Richard Hill [00:05:02]:
I love to hear the story to be fair. You know, like, the the background where people, you know, go from one industry maybe and then fall into something as just an idea. And, obviously, you you've had you've you've you're one of the cofounders and been in this business for a long, long time. Do you still do you go out to Singapore at all?

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:05:20]:
Yeah. Yeah. We we've, so I was so before moving here, to the UK, I was in India, managing our India operations, as well as overall company operations. Yeah. I also spent some time in Singapore. Keep traveling there. It's a great place to be.

Richard Hill [00:05:35]:
I'm looking forward. I'm going out there in about 5 weeks' time. Yeah. So I'm looking forward to that. Yeah. Yeah. Just for a just for a vacation, not not not work. So quite looking forward to that.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:05:44]:
You will enjoy it.

Richard Hill [00:05:45]:
I actually I actually there at university a long time ago, so I've got fond memories of about 30 years ago of studying at university in Singapore. Yeah. I did my degree here, but I did an extension of my degree in Singapore Singapore University, about 30 years ago. So looking forward to, boring my children with I used to go there. I used to study here. I used to go here.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:06:08]:
Yeah. Yeah. But Taking them out

Richard Hill [00:06:10]:
through the top. So, obviously, working with a lot of merchants now, a lot of merchants worldwide, globally, your your software sort of seems to offer unique advantages to ecom stores. You know, if you were to break down the sort of the most compelling benefits of your software, what would that what would that be? Your your tech. Sorry.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:06:27]:
Got it. So see, I I also would like to give a bit of background. So I mentioned about we're running fulfillment center, when we started off, but we also used to do channel management for a lot of brands of L'Oreal, L'Oreal, 3, etcetera. That gave us a great learning in terms of managing sales operations. So when I say sales operations on the channel management site, on your website, on different marketplace channels, different stores, how you manage content, how you, manage pricing, how you manage different bundles together, and then how you also, run your pricing promotions or marketing campaigns. So, of course, through it with that experience, that that gave us a lot of insights in terms of knowing how merchants work, how how business happens, on on different online channels. So sorry for that. So coming coming with that experience, we we developed, of course, couple of products, around that.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:07:35]:
The way we solve, some of the problems for for the merchants, be it brands or retailers who are selling online, into ecommerce space is, 1, is basically making their content, or catalog listing part, quite easier and simpler. Because primarily these days, lot of brands, lot of merchants, lot of sellers, they sell not only on one channel, but on multiple channels. We have customers who are selling on maybe 10 Shopify stores. Yeah. They have 10 different Shopify stores. Selling on Shopify, but on 10 different stores. Or they are selling on different marketplaces. So managing your content, on all those different channels makes it, quite tiring for you if you have to really go through the qualification process, understanding what different nitty gritties are there per channel, makes it very, very time consuming.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:08:34]:
So that's one thing that that we solve, for for our, for our customers, for merchants through our product. That is 1. Yep. Second is on the on the inventory side. So I will leave in in terms of the inventory where, let's say, if you are selling on different online channels, it becomes quite challenging if you have to split the inventory, and keep managing that. If you have 5, 10, 20, 30 odd products to sell, it is okay. You will probably know that which product is selling faster, which is not selling on a particular channel, and then you can move around the territory. But then when you have 500, 1000, 2000 SKUs to manage, one of our large customers is is today managing 450,000 SKUs.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:09:19]:
Yeah. And it becomes quite challenging for them to really see where which inventory, which product is making sense. They have the right inventory. They're not getting out of stock and not losing business. So that's the second piece where we we bring it with a common unified inventory for, for the businesses to to basically push it on different channels. And then as I went, there is an order from 1 of the channels. We we adjust the inventory Mhmm. On on another, channel for them.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:09:47]:
Then 3rd piece comes on the order, processing side. So today, if I'm selling on 3 different channels, I have to go log in every time onto 3 different channels, pull out orders, give it to my operations team to process those orders, and then, making sure that, all the orders are ready to fulfill, go back, update the order status, tracking number, everything 1 by 1 or 2 bulk uploads. So what we do is we we bring all those orders. So again, there is a single view for all the orders, coming from different online channels. That makes it very, very easy and simple in terms of you not missing SLAs as well. Because a lot of times, the merchants have put in maybe 24 hours delivery, same day delivery, 6 hours delivery. Yeah. And then they tend to miss out on those type of orders.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:10:35]:
So the system makes makes sure that you are fulfilling processing the orders in the right sequence so that you don't miss out on SLAs. And the 4th piece is also connecting it with the with the carrier systems, because then it makes it very, very seamless if you are getting pushing your your your parcel level, shipper level information to the carriers automatically whenever you're ready. Get the tracking number, automatically push it to to the upstream channels. Makes it very, very simple. So you don't you basically cut down all those manual interventions in the whole process. So so, yeah, I would say these are the 4 elements, primarily, that that we we started focusing on. Of course, there there there are a few more, features very specifically for brands, as well. I will come to it, in a in a bit as well.

Richard Hill [00:11:26]:
But I think you, you know, you hit the nail on the head there with the you know, I think, merchants of a certain size, you know, they are exploring and and setting up on new channels, you know, which is what, you know, is the probably the the easier way to or the definite way to, you know, open a new channel, whether that's a new country, whether that's a new you know, another another Amazon in a different country or it's, you know, it's a whole new site. You know, know, obviously, these channels that you can create, obviously, we could talk about that for a long time. But, obviously, they're managing the inventory, the stock, the listings, different countries, different languages even, can get quite complex. And, obviously, that's something that you guys excel at. Now, obviously, you're working with a lot of different merchants, you know, of of, you know, some big you mentioned a few brands there at the beginning, big brands. You know, what would you say what are some of the things use where you would recommend to listeners that are maybe hitting that they're hitting the ceiling of a you know, we can pick an arbitrary number. They're they're they're sort of stuck at 20 mil. They're stuck at an amount.

Richard Hill [00:12:27]:
It doesn't really matter what it is, but, you know, it's it's several £1,000,000 a year.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:12:33]:
What are some

Richard Hill [00:12:33]:
of the strategies that you're seeing some of the more progressive, ecom store marketing teams or leadership teams? What are they doing to push through to that next 5, 10 mil, or more?

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Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:13:26]:
I think first of all is to understand your customer or when you understand your customer. So, of course, this is not new. But with with digital age, it becomes sometimes challenging, and sometimes you get overwhelmed with the data. Right? So it it can be really extreme. So I think knowing your customer, in terms of where exactly your customer is for which type of product. Right? So when when I say knowing your customer is, which category or which particular brand for you sounds well in which region. So for example, if you are selling health supplements and just making it up, let's say, north of UK, health supplements sell very well compared to south of UK. Right? And if you have this this categorization, if you are able to really cut down the data to that level, then you can decide whether you want to store the inventory closer to the to to your consumers.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:14:28]:
So I think a lot of, businesses or, or sellers are looking at how fast they can serve their customers. And that's where it comes in, where you understand, your customers' demographics, their their actual, location, and what works. And then you place your inventory accordingly, nearby to to fulfill their orders faster. That is that is one, approach which which I have seen a lot of brands are, are focusing on. The second is, of course, in terms of of of share search. Typically, what happens when when you go as a as a buyer, you should put down certain such, such words. So for example, air fryer. I'll probably go and put air fryer on Amazon and then see, maybe hundreds of listings.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:15:23]:
But then I pick up one particular product only. I think knowing why and how many listings search listings have appeared. If you're on the 2nd page of Amazon, literally no one will come there. Right? So you have to be on the 1st page of Amazon search results. Same with Google, for example. So I think knowing, how well you can be in those first ten, that is very, very important. Content piece is is another very, very important, which I have seen a lot of, businesses are focusing. Their marketing teams are spending a lot of time in terms of using the right keywords.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:16:02]:
Sometimes, children or kinder or adult makes a lot of sense, or teenage makes a lot of sense. Right? The way individuals, the buyers, consumers are searching, it makes a lot of sense where your product lands in. I was talking to someone last week and and exactly this is what happened. They are selling a particular product, and they saw their their their their competitors started getting more, and their their their market share group started getting down. And they they did some study in terms of comparing their the content, and they saw that the only difference was these guys were using, teenage while the while the competitor was using Kinder as a as a word. And then Yeah. For that specific category, Kinder makes more sense.

Richard Hill [00:16:49]:
Yeah.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:16:49]:
So I think knowing that, that is that is very, very important. So knowing the customer, knowing how well your your content is. 3rd piece, which I have seen is making it easy for shipping. Pick up, drop off, for example. So, like, these days we see a lot of lockers being placed every now and then, every here and there. Making that facility available to your to your customers makes it very, very easy as well. Yeah. So I would say these are couple of elements.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:17:18]:
Of course, this is not a full full set, but but, again, depends on on brand to brand and category to category. I have seen lot of lot of focus happening.

Richard Hill [00:17:28]:
Yeah. I mean, a lot because it's an interesting one, isn't it? I think, you know, I've probably developed a slight addiction to Vinted in the last, 6 months. And quite a lot of the times, those products get shipped to local lockers, and I have to go and pick them up. Yeah. You know? I think that's it's quite handy. Obviously, more and more people are working, you know, where they're not maybe sure where they're gonna be working from. Are they gonna work from home? Are they gonna work from office? Are they gonna work for a coffee shop? Are they gonna be in a meeting? They're maybe not so sure where they're gonna be on that particular day. You know? No.

Richard Hill [00:17:59]:
Obviously, that's a small percentage, but it's still you know, if you can get a 10% lift, with an ecom store because there's an option to have that delivered to a locker or obviously, what as a made up percentage. But, yeah, it's these little these little touches. Yeah. And then going back to the copy and the content, I think, you know, a lot of people are still you know, they're not spending time on quite a simple well, I call it simple because it's what we do for a living, but, you know, copywriting content piece where they're, you know, it's funny you should say sort of, you know, you were talking about, you know, appealing to a certain age of of,

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:18:37]:
you know

Richard Hill [00:18:37]:
and we have, you know, we represent a quite a few companies that sell products in the baby niche, but there's obviously babies, and then there's toddlers, you know, and then there's children. Now they're they're they're just just saying that out loud, you assume that a baby is, you know, naught to maybe 1a half maybe. I don't I don't know the exact number off the top of my head, but and then a toddler is, what, 1a half to 3, is it, maybe? I'm not sure. You know? And then a and then a child, you know, you would you call a a a 3 month old a child. You say, oh, look at that baby. So

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:19:11]:
Yeah. It's

Richard Hill [00:19:12]:
like definition. But that translates though to, you know, when you're thinking about your categorization on your website and creating different categories, you should have a baby, toddler, and child category, in theory. Absolutely. Yeah. Car seats. You know, a car seat for a baby is not necessarily the same car seat for a 6 year old.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:19:32]:
You know,

Richard Hill [00:19:32]:
it's a different so trying to cover those search terms so it's quite a deep you know, it can become quite an exercise. And then what happens is you end up creating, as I think you're alluding to, you can create extra categories, extra areas on your website to cover off the gaps, you know, the content gaps in effect, the category content gaps, subcategories. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Because I think a lot of people just sort of take the categorization that they've maybe had for a long while and just live with it. Where in reality, I think doing the work on those categorization, on the categories, you'll find that actually, you know, there's quite a lot of products in the wrong category.

Richard Hill [00:20:10]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:20:11]:
Absolutely. We we have seen some of our customers, on one side, they get happy because their their their revenue is growing. But then some of them are very smart where they also go deep into the category level, and they start to realize that, oh, I'm making money. I'm my revenue is increasing, but then why my particular revenue on certain categories is going down? What is the reason?

Richard Hill [00:20:36]:
Yeah.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:20:36]:
And I think that is very, very important to to know that whether it is they are in a in a wrong place or the competition is catching up, I think it is it is very, very important. So so yeah. So Yeah. I have seen some of our customers doing that deep level of of study, and and that's sort of, as I mentioned earlier, that's that's one of the one of the other products we offer where the system basically makes sure that it it brings all that analytics and insights of your online digital shelf health and close that information to, let's say, to to the head of ecommerce or the marketing managers or the decision makers who wants to typically decide what to sell next or at what price point to to to sell. It's not necessary that so in in fact, it can it goes to to this extent where where someone keeps tracking that when my competitors, products are going out of stock, and then I shoot I shoot my price up, and then I still make money on on top of it. Right? So Yeah. So so so things are becoming very, very smart. And then and then, of course, we we always want to make sure that we we we bring in that innovation to our products as well.

Richard Hill [00:21:47]:
That's an interesting on price, isn't it? Because I think quite a lot of people, you know, don't use price as a, as a marketing lever. Like they could, you know, if you're, if you're selling a particular product, you know, several usually for several other people are selling that product if it's a branded product. But if those other people are out of stock, man, there's been a uplift in demand for a particular product and you're the only ones with stock, you potentially you can put your prices up and not down. Yeah. You know? Yeah.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:22:12]:
And I

Richard Hill [00:22:12]:
think quite a lot of people forget that or don't monitor that, and, obviously, there's quite a lot of different pricing tools out there that can do that. You know, we work with,

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:22:19]:
like, you know,

Richard Hill [00:22:20]:
we work with pricing quite, quite heavily, whoever pricing tool that we recommend. Okay. So, what would you say are some of the most pressing challenges that the industry is facing right now?

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:22:34]:
Okay. So I think one of the so I was I was going through one of the studies, and and and I see that that ecommerce share of the total retail, in the UK is is around 26, 27%, which is still quite significant compared to the the other European countries. I believe what is what is happening today is, one, there is there is a lot of stress, today, on sustainability. Right? So that's that's something which lot of businesses have started to focus on. Yeah. What it means is whatever you deliver, whatever the revenue that you're generating, you you have your business sustainable or at least you have a a a road map to sustainability. Because of this, lot of businesses have started to turning down their returns product returns. Right? Because eventually, it's the ship it's the shipping.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:23:32]:
It's the logistics that comes into picture. Yeah. It's the product that that's getting manufactured. So probably the same product is manufacture is getting manufactured 10 times, and then you're you're only selling maybe 4 products, 4 units, out of it. Right? But then you still have to manufacture 10 units out of it. Right? So so a lot of I think this is something where where a lot of businesses I have started seeing, are are really facing some challenge in terms of how to balance, how much to produce, and still be sustainable, and then make sure that you have lesser and lesser returns. Right? So I think that's where, the the challenge is coming. If it is domestic, it is still fine, sometimes manageable, especially in the in the developed countries.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:24:19]:
But then when it comes to cross border, it becomes quite a challenge. So if, let's say, someone a big retailer from here doing shipments, let's say, 3 times a week to Singapore, and then having returns maybe 20% of the shipment that is going there, it's quite massive, impact on them. And then eventually, of course, it it impacts the overall price that consumer pays. Right? So all of that gets get adjusted intact. So I think sustainability returns, how much to produce or or or manufacture, I think that's that's what the cost is, isn't it?

Richard Hill [00:24:55]:
We I think if we if we were to pull everyone's balance sheet, you know, typical merchant doing, you know, 20,000,000 £ dollars a year. They look at their balance sheet and the value on that balance sheet of stock and how much percent what percentage of that stock is actually returns or overvalued, you know, overcompensated for on the balance sheet. I mean, anything, I mean, returns, it literally used to keep me up at night. You know, the amount the the value sitting in the corner of the warehouse of the returns and obviously getting getting that turn back into cash Sure. Getting those products resold. You know, what are you seeing some of the progressive, merchants doing to reduce returns?

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:25:41]:
I think some some innovation, in terms of in terms of, of course, not these days. AI is again, one of the technologies that is picking up, and and quite wide widely. Lot of businesses I have started seeing that they they provide a a medium for for an individual to see that, to really really feel that if it is Sky Blue that I'm buying, how will I look in in in that blue? Right? So so a lot of innovation is is happening on on that front so that you can reduce, reduce your returns. And whenever whichever product that you deliver to the to the customer becomes happy with that. I think that's, AI is is is definitely playing a good role or has started to play a good role there to to reduce, these type of returns, especially in case of exchanges and and not myBlue, type of returns. Right? So I think that's that's one thing which I which I have started seeing. The second, I believe is is also some of the businesses are trying to trying to produce kind of just in time. Not exactly just in time, but but but very close to actual assessing that how much lead time that I will need and then what what type of products I should I should procure.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:27:01]:
And some businesses have have also started taking advantage of those northern hemisphere and the southern hemisphere. Of course, your your your seasonality changes, but then they are trying to take leverage of of that where where it is winter. In Northern Hemisphere, it's it's summer, and they're trying to see if they can sell the same products in the Southern Hemisphere and still make, money out of it. So I think that's that's where some some of these innovations are happening, in terms of how we can push those products. They probably may not may not store the products locally, down and down. Let's say in Australia, still, have it here, but then they sell on on discounted price and then have a bulk shipment going from here to Yeah. Australia and and and then, distribute it locally. So I think these are on the logistics side, on the shipment side, and and in terms of getting to getting a giving that feel to to the consumer that whatever product you are buying, that's that's something which is which is quite important.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:28:02]:
And I started seeing that businesses are doing Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:28:05]:
I think, like, apparel is is a tricky one, isn't it? People people I know historically would order 2 or 3 sizes of a clothing item or a shoe or a couple of sizes, and then obviously, maybe send one back or send you know, have many back. But I've noticed more and more apparel brands are sort of I'm not sure how to explain it, but they add, like, a tag to the to the to the item. Yes. And it says it it says if this if this is removed, then you've you can't send it back. K. Because obviously some some people might be buying them and wearing one and sending them back. And I noticed my my wife ordered something me a couple of weeks ago, and it came with a, you know, like, a strap that was wrapped around it. And it says it said, you know, if this is removed, you cannot you cannot return it.

Richard Hill [00:28:49]:
Correct. And I think, obviously, that's, that's a good thing. You know? Obviously, you're gonna Absolutely. People are gonna start reducing the the quantity that they order, knowing for well they're gonna send 1 or 2 back or all of them back. And, we're trying to find that balance, isn't it, a lot of the time? Because obviously, you wanna give the consumer the choice to be able to try on something maybe. But there's a diff quite a difference between ordering a couple of sizes to get the right size, but then some people will just order quite a lot. So and then wear them and then send them back. So it's a tricky balance, isn't it?

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:29:20]:
Yeah. And even sometimes you get a duplicate product as well. Yeah. It it it happens. I mean, I have seen some of some of the examples in in in some countries in in Asia where you deliver a a a a right product, but then you what you receive in return is a is a duplicate product. Of course, with with this technology of tag that you mentioned, you can definitely secure it, make sure that you are you are getting the right product.

Richard Hill [00:29:46]:
So we've managed to get that order. And, obviously, now we've got an opportunity to really wow that customer with an exceptional post purchase experience. Yeah. What we say to our listeners about ensuring that journey now is an exceptional one?

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:30:01]:
Got it. So I think, a couple of things. One is, of course, the the very usual one is how was your feedback? That's that's one. Right? But, but I think beyond that, if if if we can also, share any information in terms of, by the way, you purchased so and so product. Those who purchased this product, they also purchased some of these products, within 3 months or within 6 months of time. Right? Or they purchase so and so services or warranty, etcetera. I think that could be one. Also also sharing insights in terms of, some of the products that you have purchased over last, let's say, 6 months, year till date, etcetera.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:30:50]:
How much in in terms of how much value that it has it has brought in and how much now again, I'm correcting it back to back to sustainability where how much we have saved while delivering it to you because of so and so, product that's that that were delivered in to you or, and and nearby it is. So I think that's that's that's second, which which which I see, post purchase. The 3rd could be in terms of getting to know what what else they would have expected. I think, hearing it back from from the buyers, in terms of, of course, in very specific categories. Otherwise, you can get a a chance to get a response as well. But, but but but actually categorizing it in terms of what you want to understand from the from the buyers, I think that is very important that if I purchased, let's say, an an Apple MacBook, what would you expect, to buy maybe down the line? Which are the products that you you are looking for? How was your experience? Right? So or were you expecting anything else from from our side in terms of services, the way that the the product was delivered, etcetera. So categorically, objectively asking those questions will help you when you deliver the the products next time or to some other new customer, but giving that Huawei experience, which probably the new customer wouldn't have expected, that from you. So, of course, it is learning from 1 customer, but then making sure that it gets implemented.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:32:20]:
Don't have to wait for the repeat purchase from the same customer, but executing it for the new customers. I think that is that is also very, very, very, very important, in this case.

Richard Hill [00:32:30]:
Yeah. Yeah. I think that one of just that that communication piece when that order has been placed, you know, I think, know, we're all very busy. We might have to go out. We might, you know, just say if we're getting that time slot, just a simple thing, having a time slot. You know, because, obviously, that's connecting your, you know, your systems up if you like. If you know it's, you know, 11 to 11:15, which, you know, it makes a difference. You're not staying in all day.

Richard Hill [00:32:53]:
You're not waiting, you know, when you don't need to be waiting, or you can plan your day, you know, and just working, obviously, with reliable partners that that data and that information is correct. Yeah. I think so I think the people that are listening now will be thinking, you know, okay. This all sounds great. You know, we wanna we wanna maybe implement a few of the things that we've talked about if they're not already. Now where to start when you're sort of doing maybe an audit of your, you know, should we call it our our sort of tech stack, you know, away from not not so much marketing stack, but, you know, our tech stack around fulfillment, warehouse management, you know, order management. You know, where where do you how do you sort of begin to do an audit of where you are and where you wanna be?

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:33:37]:
So, I consider that this is for the existing businesses. Right? So Yeah. In that case, who who are already running, up and running. I think data reliability is very, very important, in this particular case, and data at different touch points, like you mentioned about fulfillment, mentioned about delivery, how fast the delivery was done, who was your carrier, that that plays, a good role, here in this case as well. The packaging of the product, that plays a good role as well. Right? How fast you deliver. Your your promotion analysis as well. Because sometimes what happens is when you when you run Black Friday sale, for example, you sometimes try to overcome it, and then you don't you don't deliver to that, and then you, you basically fail.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:34:29]:
I think getting those data points and then really trying to understand that what you could have done better, I think that is that is the first key, area. Yeah. Yeah. Of course, if if so if if a merchant is running their own operations or they are working with the 3PL, they, of course, need all this data at hand. And getting to know this, is is very, very important. On one side, your sales operations, if you exactly know that which products are are being sold well, which bundles virtual bundles. Sometimes you you create bundles. Right? So it let's say it is, it is your MacBook, it is your MacBook sleeve, it's adapter, etcetera, etcetera, and then you build that as a as a virtual bundle.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:35:17]:
How what how many those bundles are or what type of bundles are being sold? I think that information on the sales operational side is very, very important. 2nd key piece, of course, it it comes to your, your profitability or your margins that you are having on the fulfillment side. Right? So be it running your own warehouse, be it working with with with the 3PL, how many orders you are able to to fulfill, in a day, and how if if this load goes up, goes down, how well, you you are still within the range of your margins. I think that is very, very important. So either way, sorry to to to digress a bit, but in my view, I think data reliability is very, very important. Unless you are able to get these data points, you you will not be able to take any decisions. You you can't fix what you can't measure. So, if you have the systems, a right warehouse management system, a right, order management system, a right partner in terms of carrier, a right process in your warehouses, I think all of this collectively definitely helps you to to achieve and overachieve, and give that wow experience to the customers, over and over.

Richard Hill [00:36:36]:
That's great. Thank you so much. So in your view, what are some of the most pressing challenges right now in the industry?

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:36:42]:
I think aside to to compliance, I believe what is important is to actually know the market there. If if you're in a brand who wants to sell on ecommerce, wants to sell on different channels, I think it is important to first know what is actually selling in that country. What's the category? What is the price point? What type of products are being sold? I think that is very, very important because, I noticed because some of our customers from from Europe, while using one of our products, they they did the study before launching their product in in other countries. Because then they could really see that their category of products, they typically had, like, 1,000,000 500, SKUs. Not all SKUs they can bring in there in one go. Right? So they have to plan strategically. So I think so the way they did, I would suggest, should be done, is first understand which category. How many how many competitors or how many sellers that you see, in in in that particular category? What type of products are being sold? What are the price points? What are the commitments being made by, by those sellers, whether it is same day delivery, next day delivery, etcetera, And then whether you will be able to meet, that commitment.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:38:06]:
Right? I think that is very, very important. You don't have to sell all your assortment, but you can be, you can pick choose out of 1,500. Probably, you can only sell 100 first and start test waters and and then start bringing more and more products as you as you gain the insights. Yeah. So aside to compliance, I think this is very, very important. Then comes whether you you ship it order by order or you have a forward place inventory. That again, depends if you're, of course, going into into into developing countries, low cost countries. You probably get a benefit of having a forward placed inventory, but primarily considering the cost of of storage there.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:38:51]:
But then you definitely need a a good fulfillment partner or storage partner in case you don't have your your own entity business set up there, and then you're still trying to to set up. So I think second piece is is is how the fulfillment will be done. If you're if you're if you're shipping the products from the UK to to, to to Saudi, and compared to if you are storing the products in Saudi, that is very, very important. It is not always necessary that you start from forward placing inventory. You can always do order by order from here, work with with maybe some of the aggregators, get some commit by committed volume, and and and take that benefit, to to still ship, order by order. And then once you have decent insights in terms of which category, which products, what's the volume, then you can go with the forward placed inventory.

Richard Hill [00:39:46]:
Abhi, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you so much for coming on now. I'd like to finish every episode with a book recommendation. Do you have a book to recommend?

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:39:55]:
One book. Well, I'm bad I'm bad in reading actually that, by the way. But but but I would say measure what matters. I think that is that is quite interesting, for me because that gave me a lot of insights in terms of, importance of measuring something. And it it it then starts feeding you in terms of where to look for pockets of data and then how you can translate that, and then what you can do with that data.

Richard Hill [00:40:25]:
Well, thank you. It's been an absolute pleasure having you on. For those who wanna find out more about you, what's the best way to do that?

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:40:30]:
Of course, in general.com, on LinkedIn. We are all there. Facebook as well. You can, of course, reach out to me on LinkedIn straight up as well.

Richard Hill [00:40:40]:
Well, thanks for coming on the show, Abhi. I look forward to seeing you again.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:40:43]:
Thank you, Richard. It was wonderful having here great insights, and I hope it was helpful for the listeners.

Richard Hill [00:40:49]:
Thanks, Abhi. Cheers.

Abhimanyu Kashikar [00:40:51]:
Thank you. Bye bye.

Richard Hill [00:40:57]:
If you enjoyed this episode, hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you are listening to this podcast so you're always the first to know when a new episode is released. Have a fantastic day, and I'll see you on the next one.