Zoho launches e-commerce solution for small retailers

PUNE: Zoho Corp has announced the launch of Zoho Commerce, an e-commerce solution which will help small retailers set up their own ecommerce sites. Hyther Nizam, vp-product management, Zoho Corp said that the company had been running a beta version for the past year with 3,500 retailers globally, about 10% of which were in India.
“People want to move away from marketplaces and have more control over their online sales and improve their margins,” he said. The product would be integrated with existing Zoho backend solutions like Zoho Books (accounting software) and Campaigns, an email campaign software.

There are over 480 million internet users in India, and this number will grow to over 600 million by 2021. The total size of e-commerce market is around $22 billion—nearly 4.5% of the total retail—in India, and it is expected to grow to $50 billion by 2023.

Zoho Commerce is powered by Zoho's AI assistant Zia and is GST compliant. Nizam said that unlike existing companies that offered the same service where the retail pays on a per transaction basis, they would charge a flat monthly fee on a monthly gross merchandise value (GMV) of upto Rs 25 lakhs. “We want to disrupt the marketplace and will take a bottom up approach, starting with small and medium retailers,” said Nizam. The company would also educate the merchants in how to increase traffic to their website, run email campaigns and on social media marketing.

Zoho currently has over 40 products across different business categories, including sales and marketing, customer support and accounting.