India has seen an amazing journey of eCommerce startups, full of stories of success and sometimes failure. One example is ShopClues, an online market for shopping that went through a rough patch but then rose to great heights again. At its height, ShopClues was even India's fourth unicorn, which is a very honorable title. But its success didn't last long because a series of events brought it down in the end. The following article will go into detail about why ShopClues didn't do well, telling the story of its rise and fall.
RISE OF ONLINES SITES IN INDIA
The internet and its widespread use have made at least one thing possible: the ability to set up sites that connect to each other. In this way, most things from the time before the internet have changed to be easier to get and more available. The market is one of these parts.
In recent years, the Indian market has opened up multiple avenues to small businesses looking to transform into sustainable eCommerce businesses. The country also promotes established online commercial platforms. Therefore, eCommerce platforms like Amazon India, Snapdeal, Flipkart, Nykaa, Myntra, and more, have gone on to see great success in the Indian subcontinent.
However, these successes are balanced by major businesses that have failed to sustain themselves and secure a long-term future. One such company is ShopClues. Its rise and crash have been among well-noted cases in the eCommerce world.
SO WHAT WENT WRONG WITH SHOPCLUES?
Selling things online isn't the only thing that makes an eCommerce business successful. It means navigating rivals, taking care of internal issues, and getting past different problems to keep operations running smoothly and keep making money. But this job is not at all simple. ShopClues had a lot of problems that ended in its terrible demise.
COMPETITIVE PRESSURE FROM INDUSTRY GIANTS
When ShopClues took off in India, eCommerce firms were rare. Founders capitalised on this in 2011 and marketed items accordingly. By 2014, Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart focused on Indian online commerce platforms.
Flipkart was only an online bookshop, and Amazon was a western company. Both extensively marketed to eliminate competitors. ShopClues grew and consolidated, becoming the little fish encircled by sharks. New competitors with greater marketing skills outperformed ShopClues. This contributed to ShopClues' downfall.
FALSE BRANDING
Furthermore, the business lost money on its offers. The idea in 2011 was to provide metropolitan amenities to rural and suburban areas that did not have access to them. But consumer accusations that the goods were phoney started to come in. Owner of Ray-Ban, Luxottica Group, claimed that ShopClues was selling Ray-Ban goods with fictitious labels. The Indian company was pulled up by the Delhi High Court for selling the goods in spite of earlier cautions following the charge. Public perception of ShopClues suffered as a result.
POOR PRODUCT QUALITY
Reports of the brand supplying consumers with low-quality goods also surfaced, along with fake goods. The things were not up to standard even with the cheap prices and intriguing offers. The company was accused by many users of dupes and scams. People never got their reimbursements or their products on schedule. Most calls for assistance were not answered by the customer service option. This damaged ShopClue's reputation and inflamed users' animosity towards the company.
CONTROVISIES WITHIN THE COMPANY
The firm was shaken repeatedly by controversies. 2013 saw accusations of insider trading brought against Sandeep Agarwal, the CEO and founder of ShopClues. As such, Aggarwal was detained in the US and entered a guilty plea after accepting a plea bargain. The same year he left ShopClues as CEO.
Internally for the brand, 2017 was a challenging year. Sandeep Aggarwal held his estranged wife Radhika responsible for forcing him from the business. After that, the couple broke up and kept fighting in public about voting rights and accusations of fraud. Then Aggarwal posted a demeaning Facebook message about his wife and sued Sethi and Radhika for criminal defamation. He charged that they minimised his role in starting and developing ShopClues. Every one of these founder-related incidents painted a false image of the platform in the public mind.
IN CONCLUSION
ShopClues had all the necessary elements to become a thriving eCommerce platform with strong potential for success. Nevertheless, the company was left behind due to issues such as intense rivalry, a lack of entrepreneurial efforts, and ambiguous operational procedures. The internal affairs and handling procedures of ShopClues contributed to its decline from a successful business to a superfluous one.
Share this post