Exclusive: Logistics Unicorn Shiprocket Pilots D2C Marketplace Zop

Delhi-NCR based logistics tech unicorn shiprocket is piloting a D2C marketplace Zop, Inc42 has learnt. The pilot started a few weeks ago and hosts around 200-300 brands across eight categories including fashion, beauty, electronics, among others. 

Saahil Goel, cofounder, managing director and CEO of Shiprocket, claimed Zop will generate more demand for these D2C brands and help them with discovery. “D2C brands which are having trouble in generating demand or are unable to get much online exposure on their own should try Zop,” Goel told Inc42. 

At the moment, Zop is charging a sales commission from brands for listing their products.

Shiprocket’s Zop Vs Other Marketplaces

Without revealing any details, Goel said that Shiprocket and Zop will be running several experiments in terms of generating demand for D2C brands. Zop is currently targeting smaller brands that are struggling with advertising costs and are at the mercy of Meta’s advertising cost per mille (CPM) or cost per thousand impressions.

“Zop will help brands with discovery, advertisement and also will help them generate traffic outside the purview of Meta and Google,” he added.

With the launch of Zop, Shiprocket would be competing against the likes of Meesho, Amazon, Flipkart, JioMart and others in the marketplace segment. 

The CEO said it is too early to comment on the topline that Zop can generate, but said it would have a distinctive edge over Flipkart and Amazon since Zop is completely focused on helping Indian homegrown D2C brands get discovered. 

Founded in 2017 by Goel, Vishesh Khurana, Akshay Gulati and Gautam Kapoor, Shiprocket is an aggregator of third-party logistics companies and offers several ecommerce services, including digital marketing, analytics and WhatsApp commerce. 

While 80% of the startup revenue still comes from shipping, in the past 18-24 months it has added services such as payments, marketing, exports and more.

In the last two years, Shiprocket acquired five companies Glaucus Supply Chain Solutions, Wigzo, Pickrr, Omuni, and Rocketbox and is likely to acquire more in the coming months, Goel said.  

“We started our journey with shipping, and did that for five years. Now in the past two years we have been working on products related to payments, conversion, checkout, lending, and exporting,” he said, adding that one of the last areas that the company wanted to focus on was generating demand.

Will Zop Join Quick Commerce Bandwagon?

Quick commerce has become the biggest disruption to marketplaces such as Amazon and Flipkart. The likes of Blinkit, Zepto, and Swiggy Instamart have made inroads into what used to be marketplace territory with their dark store models. It remains to be seen how Zop will compete in this evolving market. 

The situation is such that in 2024, several D2C brands are moving to quick commerce-first strategy and shrinking their focus from marketplaces, as we wrote in our coverage on Flipkart Minutes. 

While Zop is in a pilot stage, the launch time is peculiar. Shiprocket rolled out a WhatsApp storefront bot and is also launching a quick shipping service for small businesses and direct sellers. These indicate that Shiprocket wants to also build ecommerce SaaS for smaller businesses, so the addition of the marketplace is definitely a more capital-intensive play. 

Besides this, the company recently launched Shiprocket Quick across Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune for same-day deliveries. 

Shiprocket, which is eyeing a public offering next year, is in the midst of raising around $120 Mn, as per reports. 

Tribe Capital, along with other investors, is in talks to invest more in the company at a valuation of $1 Bn – $1.1 Bn, which would be a flat round. To date the startup has raised over $350 Mn in funding and counts investors such as Moore Strategic Partners, Zomato, PayPal, McKinsey, among others.