What is Shopclues all about?
It is really exhausting to go shopping for clothes on the one weekend that you get instead of relaxing at home. Going to the shopping complex or mall to find a piece of clothing that you want and have specifically come for that particular clothing all the way but you either do not find it or it is out of stock or it is present but not in your size. This is not an uncommon scenario for Indians. Even after going shop hopping for hours you are not guaranteed that will find what you are looking for. Either the right size is not available or the right material or the right colour. Even if you end up buying what you want finding matching Jewellery to go with the dress is another concern to be addressed. This is no just limited to the fashion industry but this problem is present everywhere by large.
To put an end to these woes we have Shopclues. It is an online store that has all your all your fashion supplies along with other wide range of products like electronic gadgets, home and kitchen and many more.
How Shopclues came into existence?
Clues network Pvt Ltd. is the initial owner of Shopclues which was started in the year 2011 in the month of July. It Shopclues is and online shopping store that has more than 2 lakh merchanrts from Tier2 and Tier 3 cities supplying to them. It promotes and hosts local businesses and home-grown brands under its online Platform. was founded by Sanjay Sethi along with the Co-founders, Radhika Aggarwal and Sandeep Agarwal. It has the headquarters in the city of Gurugram, Harayana.
About the founder:
There are three master minds behind this Internet success business, the first being Sanjay Sethi. Who completed his B.Tech in mechanical engineering from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology. He was interested in Astrophysics but went on to take up further education in Software technology from the Indian Institute of technology Delhi. He started his professional career with Rourkela Steel plant but his affiliation towards was still present as he took up a program on Technology and Innovation Transfer in the In the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. His experience in ecommerce comes from his short stint with ebay, where he dealt with the logistics and shipping area of the company after which he founded Shopclues.
Radhika Aggarwal has an extremely prestigious accolade to her name; she is the very first woman entrepreneur to be included in the Unicorn club of India. She comes from a disciplined family of the Army. Her father is from the Army where as her mother is a dietician. She has her Master’s in Business administration from Washington University in St. Louis and a degree in public relations and advertising. She also has some learnings from the Stanford University as a part of an executive program. She has had a 14 years of experience in the United States of America, in varied fields with her working in Nordstorm and Goldman Sachs before finally coming back to India to co- found Shopclues.
Sandeep Agarwal did his Bachelor’s in commerce in Kurukshetra University, and a Master in Finance in Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalay. Followed by an MBA in Startegy in the Washington University in St. Liou. His work experience involves his work with Kotak Securities, Charles Swab, Microsoft Corp, Citigroup Investment research, Oppenheimer & Co, Collin Stewart, Caris and company before he finally founded Shopclues.
Valuation and Investment
Shopclues has been valued currently at $1.1 Billion, the most capital share holding investors being Tiger Global and Nexus Venture Capital.
Journey so far:
In India entrepreneurship is not a new bug, we have had people doing entrepreneurship from ancient days, be it grocery, food, clothing and many such small industries have existed in India from times immemorial. Shopclues started with the noble idea of giving a digital space for these small industries to go live on the ecommerce platform. The industry is now flooded with a lot of ecommerce platforms that have a million brand names under them but shopclues wanted to stand apart by not getting into the competition by having another ecommerce site that has a lot of big brands listed under its name.
So Shopclues was founded in the year 2011 when Radhika Agarwal quit her job in London and came down to India to start a business here where there was a platform not for the brands but for the smaller players in the Industry to go online. She says that most of her business is from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. For most people in India the buying big branded items is still a luxury. They would any day pick something affordable over something that is branded. So Shopclues was founded to give an opportunity for these individuals as well on the digital market space.
Obstacles faced and overcome
Shopclues has a had a lot of roadblocks and obstacles that it has had to overcome since its advent. The first incident was when Shopclues was going to be launched in India and everything was up and ready for the Launch when one of the Investors who had agreed to give a huge share of Investment backed out overnight and they founders had to pull some strings and make calls to everyone they knew so that they could finally raise some money. Which then led them to smoothly sail through the launch of the company.
The other problems that they have faced include the integrity and credibility of the merchant suppliers. There were instances when there were huge orders and the merchant went absconding from the scene and the company and their team sent individual apology letters to all they people who had ordered along with the order.
The company definitely has a lot of competion from the bigger ecommerce platforms like amazon and flipkart but they are going strong staying true to their values of having the digital platform open only for the smaller players in the country.
There is also a lot of news around the internal spat amoungst the founders Sandeep Agarwal and the other two founders Radhika Agarwal and Sanjay Sethi since the acknowledgement of the arrest of Sandeep Agarwal in an insider trading case from the research done by Inventiva, but the company is still going strong with its focus on the business and has made it to one of the largest market places in India.
Expansion and future plan
Shopclues is planning to expand by adding offline retain stores which was first started in 2018. As a plan of its expansion plan Shopclues intends to expand to about 100 stores using the franchise model.
Impact on the society
Shopclues has been able to provide and scale the lives of over 2 lakh online merchants by building their business online. It has given them a fair opportunity in this era of ecommerce and digital marketing, thereby letting the common man to benefit from this app as well.
