Not all people are born with the sales gene. Neither it is easy to sell the things, especially online. When it comes to online selling there are number of initial investments are to be made such as setting up the storefront, integrating a payment gateway, managing logistics etc.
However, to make online selling easy, there are platforms such as Instamojo, PayUMoney, Shopify, Gumroad which let users to set a store on their website for which they charge seller a particular amount from sales. Furthermore, taking the mobile first approach in online selling is a platform called as mY Window.
Started by Veer Mishra and Nikunj Agarwal as a people search engine in the year 2011, mY Window has seen some major changes since then. In November 2013, mY Window removed social networking from its website and launched it as a platform to sell digital stuff in January 2014. mY Window has an Android and iPhone application which let sellers to upload the things that they want to sell online in a minute’s time.
How it Works
mY Window let Designers, Film makers, Artists to open their own virtual store while they are busy creating some awesome creative stuffs. One can sign up with mY Window either using Facebook account or through email address. After signup, one can start selling things like a design, books, music, art work, event tickets etc. It even takes pre-orders for the upcoming releases.
To start selling, choose the type of product you want to sell, add a title, price, cover photo and the file you want to sell. A link will be generated for your request which you will have to circulate in your network of prospective buyers. The amount collected from the sales is credited directly to seller’s Paypal account. mY Window charges 4.9% + 30 cents per transaction from the seller.
Talking about the unique proposition of mY Window, Veer Mishra tells, “Currently there is no platform in India which can process pre-orders for any work. This is because Indian rules and regulations do not allow payment gateways to store card information of a user. This is the reason why we have incorporated mY Window in U.S. and uses Stripe as our payment processor. With this, we can take pre-orders for any upcoming book or event. The payment is deducted from user’s account once the book has been released in the market or event is confirmed.”
Marketing Plans
mY Window was incubated by Kyron Investors and has seen over 1,000 signups post re-launch in January 2014. There are currently 250 sellers and 10 affiliates using this platform. The sales trend tells that people upload the things through mobile platform and buy it from web platform. The startup is also planning to launch its woo-commerce plug-in where people will be able to sell product on its API.
Nikunj Agarwal & Veer Mishra are friends for last 13 years and went for studies at Nagpur College together. They have started their venture from the city of Nagpur and created awareness about it in Bangalore, Delhi & Mumbai through various events. They undertake niche activities on Digital Media to ensure further visibility for the same.
mY Window uses Twitter search to engage and interact with users who are looking for activities around selling things. They also share articles on blogging sites like tumblr to engage with community and to reach to right audience. Also, answering questions on Quora.com has helped them in engaging and getting users for their website and application.
