Industrybuying: A B2B online procurement platform

Industrybuying is an online e-commerce platform for businesses that enables merchant and large businesses to fulfill their procurement. The company was started in 2013 by siblings Swati Gupta and Rahul Gupta. The brother-sister duo, on various business trips, saw the explosion of e-commerce in China and the US. They discovered the huge gap in the market as SMEs and large businesses were unable to procure things easily in a one stop window. They analysed the markets abroad and started Industrybuying  as an online platform for e-commerce for businesses to simplify the process.

In conversation with Swati Gupta, co-founder & CEO at Industrybuying.com, she shares the company’s USP and plans in detail.

Tell us briefly about your startup Industrybuying

Industrybuying is a business e-commerce platform selling a wide range of business and industrial products to SMEs as well as large businesses. We have over 3,500 registered sellers and more than 50,000 registered businesses - SMEs and large corporates, procuring online from our platform. We offer wide assortment and a reliable and simplified procurement solution to our customers across country. We are based out of Delhi NCR with our fulfillment centers in Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad and Bangalore.

What sets you apart from other e-commerce platforms?

Indian B2B e-commerce space has seen huge growth in the last year and there are a lot of niche players, most of them operating in a limited set of categories. We are a truly multi-category B2B marketplace catering to a diverse set of industries. We have more than 40 categories, over a million products and 2000+ brands. This huge assortment across a wide variety of categories is what sets us apart from others in this space.

Also, we have our customised enterprise e-commerce solution - ProcMan, where businesses benefit from a wide range of products at best prices. Our entire catalog ranging from Safety and Security, Electrical and Lighting, Power and Solar, MRO supplies and many more are available for procurement on ProcMan. Through ProcMan, businesses get the e-commerce convenience coupled with Purchase Order, ERP, Credit and Invoice Based Buying.

How did you come up with the business idea, how big is your team? 

Rahul and I both worked in US for few years after which we decided to return to India to take over our family business. We felt that industrial and business procurement as a process is very tedious and is highly inefficient due to multiple factors, be it assortment, availability, pricing or delivery. We worked on building a one-stop marketplace for all business needs which would do away with all such inefficiencies and that is when Industrybuying came into existence from an idea. In the past year, we have increased our head count by 10 times. At present, our team strength is more than 380.

Did you get incubated?

We were completely bootstrapped and ran the business that way till December 2014, when we felt the need to go for our first round of funding.

Have you received funding? If yes, how much and at what stage did you receive funding? 

Industrybuying is backed by some of the leading Indian and global investors. Post our seed funding, we realised to go for the next round of funding and received $2 million from SAIF partners. Murgappa and TVS Family had also joined in our growth and invested last year. Most recently, we received funding of Rs 60 crores from Kalaari Capital in series B round that we used in establishing fulfillment centers in various cities.

What is your revenue model?

We sell at a selling price mentioned on the website. Our cost for the product is the price at which we procure the product from the vendor once the order is placed. Hence, we are a managed marketplace with zero or just in time inventory. The margin made is the difference in the selling and cost price.

What has the response been like for your product, so far? 

Industrybuying has seen great response from customers. Users who are used to buying for their personal purposes have shifted that behaviour to buy online for businesses. Mostly SMEs and even some large enterprises procure for their business needs through our platform.

Initially, we identified few barriers in B2B e-commerce industry such as online buying adoption, trust and supply chain. B2B customers have different buying behaviours and we had to build the assortment, trust, improve the supply chain, to provide reliable and quick procurement alternative.

How do you plan to widen your customer reach?

We are using both online and offline marketing channels to create awareness about online procurement and its benefits among the customers.

How do you plan to scale?

We already have pan-India footprint and deliver to around 21000 pin codes nationwide. More than 70 percent of transactions on our e-commerce platform come from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. However, there is huge opportunity in B2B e-commerce as still most of the transactions take place offline. That will change as more and more potential customers who are based out of Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities move to online procurement for their businesses.

For a business customer, our relentless focus to provide them wide assortment of products, reliable and simple e-commerce interface and our expertise in identifying the pain points of a business buyer is key in driving scale and growth for Industrybuying. B2B sector is huge and as e-commerce adoption grows for businesses, we are well suited to be one of the biggest players in the industry.

Also, considering the requirement from large businesses, our customised enterprise procurement solution - ProcMan, has seen tremendous growth in a very short span.

What goals have you set for the platform?

In few years of operation in business e-commerce, we have seen tremendous growth. In terms of GMV, we have grown more than 150% in last 6 months and targeting 25 percent of growth month on month. We have crossed 1.2 million customers visit per month on our platform and is aiming to double by next quarter.