SUGAR Fosters Ties With Unicommerce To Boost Upselling, Cross-Selling Networks

Listed SaaS company Unicommerce has announced expanding its technology support for beauty and personal care (BPC) startup SUGAR. 

The BPC startup, which has been utilising the software company’s solutions for its ecommerce operations for the past five years, will now be utilising Unicommerce’s omnichannel retail management system. 

According to Unicommerce’s exchange filings, its tech stack will aid SUGAR optimise its return order processes to bolster its upselling and cross-selling opportunities. Besides, its centralised platform will allow the brand to extend “ship-from-store” service to its customers. 

“In today’s fast-evolving market, it has become imperative to have omnichannel capabilities to offer excellent customer satisfaction. Its (Unicommerce’s) omnichannel capabilities will help further strengthen our potential to serve our customers and enhance their shopping experience across all online and offline channels,” SUGAR’s CTO Jasmin Gohil said. 

The partnership comes at a time when SUGAR has been able to cull its losses and bolster its top line. For the financial year 2023-24 (FY24), the BPC company logged in a revenue of INR 505.1 Cr, up 20% from the INR 420.3 Cr it made in FY23. 

As a result, the startup’s losses also went down by 11.3$ to INR 67.6 Cr in FY24 from INR 76.2 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

On the other hand, SaaS company Unicommerce made the announcement of the partnership a day after its shares touched an all time low of INR 175.75 on November 18. 

The downward movement of the startup’s shares initiated after it informed the bourses of its acquisition plans of commerce shipping solutions provider Shipway on November 11.

The company announced the acquisition of 42.7% of the startup for INR 68.4 Cr, with plans to acquire the complete business within a year. Since then, the company’s shares have plunged about 11%. 

During the company’s earnings transcript, investors of the company expressed concerns over the integration challenges that entail in M&As in the software space. 

When asked how the company is looking to avoid issues in cultural integration of the two entities, Unicommerce’s managing director and CEO Kapil Makhija said, “We have already put an integration plan in place to ensure that we are able to drive these synergies effectively for both the organisations. The focus will be on accelerating sales. As I mentioned before, the idea of the inorganic acquisition is to ensure that we are able to accelerate the time to market with the ready solutions that we have and can help simplify the ecosystem.”

Shares of the company were down 0.11% to INR 176.10 during intraday trading on November 19. 

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