Club Factory, the renowned e-tailer, has gained massive popularity in India which is indicated by its app download and usage data showing that it has surpassed Snapdeal to become the third largest e-commerce shopping app in India.
Following this, the company has revealed that it raised US $ 100 million in a Series D round of funding led by venture capital firm Qiming Venture Partners including Bertelsmann, IDG Capital and other Fortune 500 companies from USA and Asia.
“Club Factory offers local sellers 0 per cent commission Marketplace platform, and any legally qualified Indian seller can sell on Club Factory. At the same time, we have also pioneered to strengthen the ‘store-within-platform’ concept in India’s e-commerce industry, allowing direct contact between buyers and sellers through our application,” said Vincent, founder, and CEO of the company.
He added “We have changed the status of the Indian e-commerce industry that monopolised information of buyers and sellers, allowing SMEs to own their customers and run their business better. All this, combined with our strategy to reduce the transaction costs of buyers and sellers and allowing more local players to enter the ecosystem, has worked very well for us in India.”
Vincent also commented “India has the world’s second-largest population with the purchasing power parity (PPP) ranking third worldwide. A huge market like this undoubtedly has diversified market demand, but many players pursue a narrow range of products through a closed ecosystem. Indian customers also need another kind of e-commerce platform – a more open one – which provides more options to customers and more vitality to the e-commerce field. This is why Club Factory has been able to rapidly grow in India.”
According to the company, it has achieved more than 10 times growth in the past 6 months for its Indian SME business after onboarding thousands of sellers onto its platform.
The rapid growth of Club Factory in the Indian market is primarily due to its zero-commission strategy, where the sellers are able to transfer the cost-benefit to the users, the company said.
