SUMMARY
The D2C Summit 2023 brought together 75+ speakers from the ecommerce industry to help brands master the art of building and scaling profitable ecommerce businesses
More than 2 Lakh messages were exchanged among 5,000+ participants and 914+ meetings were set up during the two-day event
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all our partners and sponsors who supported us in making the event a grand success
Inc42 has successfully concluded the fourth edition of India’s largest D2C and ecommerce virtual conference, The D2C Summit 2023. The two-day event brought some of the most eminent industry leaders, investors, enablers and founders from India’s ecommerce industry to help D2C brands scale and grow with their time-tested playbooks.
The summit convened 75+ industry stalwarts from sectors across apparel, healthcare, wellness, beauty, consumer electronics and lifestyle sectors. These industry leaders delved into the fundamentals of D2C and shared actionable insights into empowering D2C through modern technologies, capitalising on the festive rush and championing customer retention, among several other themes.
The topics were discussed at length through candid discussions, insightful masterclasses and in-depth fireside chats to help early stage startups grow.
The virtual event hosted 25+ sessions across two days and was attended by over 5,000 attendees. At the two-day summit, the participants got an opportunity to interact with the likes of Manish Chowdhary, the cofounder of WOW Skin Science; Avnish Anand, the cofounder & COO of CaratLane; Mohit Yadav, cofounder & CEO, Minimalist; Aman Gupta, the cofounder & CMO of boAt; Adwaita Nayar, CEO, Nykaa Fashion; and Nandita Sinha, CEO, Myntra, et al.
Not only that, the event gave the attendees access to the virtual networking lounge to network with each other and more than 2 Lakh messages were exchanged among them.
All this success would not have been possible without the support of our enablers and supporters. We would like to take a moment to thank them.
Presenting Partner 
Google Cloud
Google Cloud is a suite of computing services that allows enterprises to store and compute data and helps them develop applications on Google hardware. The software giant has always been at the forefront of technology and innovation. It has over 3 Bn active users from across the globe.
This year, Google Cloud helped us execute the D2C event seamlessly. In fact, Raghavendra Narayan, principal architect, Google Cloud hosted a masterclass on ‘Building For The Future: Role Of AI & Generative AI In D2C & Ecommerce Business’.
He shared how AI will drive ecommerce in India and how D2C brands can leverage AI-driven data for marketing to expand their reach.
Gurpiar Sibia, the head of customer engineering at Google Cloud, also joined us at the D2C summit. Sibia was a speaker alongside Ramneek Khurana, cofounder, Lenskart; Deep Ganatra, group CTO, The Good Glamm Group; and Ajit Narayanan, CPTO, Licious. The session was moderated by Vamsi Krishna Rupakula, partner, advisory services, PwC India.
During the session titled ‘From CX To Sales: How Emerging Techs Are Reshaping Ecommerce’, Sibia shared his insights into how AR/VR and machine learning will help D2C brands grow. Among other topics, the panel also shared key pointers on how to integrate these technologies cost-effectively.
Co-Presenting Partner
Simpl
Fintech startup Simpl, a one-tap checkout network, makes the shopping experience seamless for customers by allowing them to procure expensive, high-valued products with ease. It helps online merchants to grow by driving traffic to their websites, boosts conversion rates and increases their repeat purchases by integrating with their websites and apps.
The Bengaluru-based startup was founded in 2015 by Nitya Sharma. It has partnered with companies like Dunzo, Zomato, MyGlamm, Boult and more. To date, it has partnered with 26K+ retail merchants, has 7 Mn users and has executed 49 Mn transactions.
Simpl is backed by Valar Ventures, IA Ventures, and LFH Ventures.
Sharma moderated two D2C Summit sessions – ‘Building A Curation-Led Marketplace — Nykaa’s Winning Formula’ and ‘The Great Indian Festive Rush: A Brand’s Playbook To Capitalise On High Demand’.
The speaker panellists of both sessions included the likes of Amit Dutta, CEO, Le Marche;
Avnish Anand, cofounder & COO, CaratLane, and Adwaita Nayar, CEO, Nykaa Fashion.
Powered By 
Salesforce
San-Francisco-based Salesforce was founded in 1999 by Marc Benioff, Parker Harris, Frank Dominguez and Dave Moellenhoff. It provides a customer relationship management (CRM) platform to empower employees to streamline operations such as marketing, sales, commerce, service, and IT within a single interface. This enables the companies to enhance customer experiences for their users.
It has a global presence in Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas. Salesforce claims to have collaborated with over 150K companies worldwide. Some of its prominent partners are Godrej, CEAT, EdelWeiss, Hubilo and more.
Sonalika Sarna, head-digital solutions, Salesforce, moderated a panel discussion that included Tippu Sultan Mohideen, head ecommerce & digital media, Atomberg Technologies; Vanda Ferrao, CMO, WOW Skin Science; Charu Kishnani, EVP marketing, CarDekho Group and Bhavna Wangnoo, the head of marketing at TagZ Foods.
The session was on ‘Mastering Customer Loyalty: How D2C Brands Can Crack The Retention Puzzle’. The panel discussed key aspects of building targeted marketing strategies to personalise the customer experience.
Emiza 
Founded by Ajay Rao in 2015, Emiza is a Mumbai-based supply chain startup that offers warehousing and fulfilment solutions to offline and online customers.
The startup is a third-party logistics company that claims to have partnered with more than 200 D2C and B2B brands across India. Some of its notable partners include Marico, Mamaearth, Clovia, Bluedart and The Souled Store. It provides omnichannel logistics solutions across India.
The startup claims to manage 17 warehouses across 18 cities in India and specialises in omnichannel logistics services. It aims to solve last-mile logistics challenges faced by companies. It has raised $846K in funding from Mayfield and JM Financial.
Rao was a speaker at the D2C Summit this year for the session ‘Mastering Demand And Supply Dynamics To Navigate Festive Season Rush’. He was a part of the speaker panel that included Ravi Saxena, founder & CEO, Wonderchef; Sahil Dharia, founder & CEO, Soothe Healthcare; and Tarun Joshi, founder & CEO, IGP & Join Ventures.
The session was moderated by Abhiram Bhalerao, partner, V3 Ventures. The speakers discussed the approaches towards flexible returns, COD models and choosing the right partnerships to scale and grow, among other topics.
