Today, Indian merchants (retailers) face multiple challenges at every step in the e-commerce journey – right from conversion and checkout, to order fulfilment, to post-shipping, to CX and loyalty. Large e-commerce marketplaces have seamlessly integrated every sub-system related to power end-to-end e-commerce. They offer adaptable solutions to small and medium businesses as well as enterprises.
Shiprocket is India’s largest e-commerce enablement platform, on a mission to empower the businesses of India to scale their growth by unleashing the true power of e-commerce. The platform helps the sellers at every step of their e-commerce journey, creating an operating system for direct commerce. Their stack of tech integrations enables shipping, fulfilment, customer communication and marketing tools, as well as providers for SMEs, D2C retailers and social commerce retailers in India.
Launched in 2017, Shiprocket is on a mission to create a seamless logistics data platform that connects retailers, carriers and consumers, across national and international locations. Shiprocket’s current offering includes shipping in India and cross-border trade, warehousing, cargo, checkout, conversion, and hyper-local deliveries.
Shiprocket wants to make e-commerce simple, accessible and trustworthy. It enables e-commerce sellers with AI-driven technology and dependable services encompassing conversion, order fulfillment, shipping, buyer communication, returns management and more.
Shiprocket’s platform leverages data, workflows and supply chains at scale, providing lakhs of digital retailers and sellers with just about everything they need to provide a delightful customer experience.
Evolution to a unicorn
In 2012, SmartStore was launched, with Da Milano, Globalite Sport and Tiekart among the first customers. In 2013, SmartStore became Kartrocket, bagging R1 crore in seed funding. In 2014, Kartrocket crossed 1,000 customers and its mobile app was up for grabs. In 2015, Kraftly was launched, while the customer base reached 2,000. In 2016, Kraftly did 50k transactions per month and Kartrocket recorded $1 million as ARR. In 2017, Shiprocket was born and launched with an aim to democratise e-commerce shipping. In 2018, Kraftly became Shiprocket Social, and Kartrocket became Shiprocket 360. The year 2019 was progress-packed, with Shiprocket scaling up to 1 million plus shipments per month. In 2020, the pandemic brought the business down by 95 per cent but, through tireless teamwork, Shiprocket team ensured timely delivery of essentials and turned EBIDTA-positive, with 3 million plus shipments per month. Soon, Shiprocket Fulfillment was launched. In 2021, Shiprocket expanded overseas, launched Shiprocket Engage, partnered with Rocketbox, Wigzo & Logibricks and secured $252 million plus from PayPal Ventures, InfoEdge Ventures, Zomato, Temasek and others. In 2022, Shiprocket joined hands with Pickrr, and got valued at about $1.2 billion, becoming the country’s 106th unicorn.
The values that drive Shiprocket include executing goals without getting stuck in the functional divisions; challenging the status quo; consistently looking for innovative, better and newer ways to solve problems; committing to excellence: thinking of the bigger picture and delivering high-quality outcomes; being humble, respectful and empathetic to the needs and the circumstances of others; delivering unexpected delights; surprising users with experiences across products, interactions and services; as also explore solutions.
Leadership team
Saahil Goel, MD & CEO, Shiprocket, is an inquisitive businessman, an experienced coder and an adventure enthusiast. He envisioned empowering MSMEs with a one-stop e-commerce solution platform and this vision was at the heart of Shiprocket’s journey to becoming a unicorn in just five years. Despite wearing many hats, Goel is known as a growth hacker because of his enthusiasm for products and technology, enabling entrepreneurship for India.
By integrating multiple shipping options on a single platform, Shiprocket empowers businesses to select the most efficient and cost-effective solutions for their shipping needs, thereby enhancing overall operational efficiency
As the leader of Shiprocket, he drives the company’s vision, strategy and growth, while actively engaging in product development, engineering and operations. With a deep passion for addressing the complex and fragmented challenges of India’s rapidly expanding e-commerce industry, he plays a pivotal role in shaping its future. He holds an MBA and an MS in Computer Science from the University of Pittsburgh, USA.
Gautam Kapoor, COO, Shiprocket, did his BBA in Business from Western International University (USA). He was previously a part of his family business in industrial products import and distribution and worked with several renowned German engineering brands such as Bosch and Sick. Shiprocket’s marquee investors include Bertelsmann India Investments (BII), Zomato, Temasek, PayPal Ventures, SSI, InfoEdge, MUFG, Lightrock, March and Tribe Capital, among others.
Shiprocket hired Tanmay Kumar as CFO in 2022. Kumar has over 22 years of experience in FMCG and retail domains and looks over investor relations, fundraising and M&A, along with leading the finance, legal and secretarial teams at Shiprocket.
Business model
Shiprocket is targeting a core business target addressable market (TAM) of more than $17 billion. This comprises direct commerce by brands, other marketplaces, in-store sales, digitally enabled social commerce and MSME exports, among others. “We act as an e-commerce aggregator, integrating multiple courier partners to offer businesses optimized, cost-effective shipping. Its revenue model includes transaction fees, subscriptions and value-added services like warehousing and cross-border shipping”, says Goel, who leverages strategic partnerships with a diverse network of courier companies and shipping providers to establish a robust support system for SMBs and enterprises. “By integrating multiple shipping options on a single platform, Shiprocket empowers businesses to select the most efficient and cost-effective solutions for their shipping needs, thereby enhancing overall operational efficiency,” he adds.
Shiprocket has a wide selection of 25 plus courier partners that retailers can choose. It offers extensive coverage with delivery services available all over the country at over 19,000+ serviceable pin codes. It has a global reach of 220+ countries and territories, with effortless and affordable international shipping services. It offers fulfilment centres strategically located for efficient order processing and delivery. It handles 220,000+ shipments daily with ‘easy order’ management, simplified shipping and quick deliveries. It has $3.24 billion annual GMV contribution supporting e-Commerce businesses in driving unprecedented business growth.
Shiprocket’s integrated platform offers revenue acceleration and geographical expansion. It also helps in data-driven decision-making and profitability improvements, while enhancing customer experience. It enables merchants to focus on direct commerce to generate higher margins and customer recalls. The advantages include brand recall, margin accretion on account of commissions, ownership of customer experience, data ownership and remarketing due to access to customer data, as well as sustainable growth.
Shiprocket is much more than a pure-play courier company. It empowers MSME for seamless e-commerce; acts as a shipping aggregator with multiple couriers and modes; provides checkout and fulfilment with end-to-end integration; offers tech- and AI-driven solutions, to make it easy for enterprises and SMBs to use them; and has multiple products for different use cases leveraging cross sell potential. It empowers merchants with a unified app too.
Shiprocket has a track record of strategic M&As – having acquired Pickrr (e-commerce logistics aggregator), Glaucus (fulfilment technology platform), Pocketbox (specialist in B2B cargo shipments), Wigzo (marketing automation tool provider) and Omuni (omnichannel commerce platform).
Shiprocket has been doing well in cargo shipping, quick speedy local deliveries and fulfilment in the form of warehousing packaging and shipping services. In cross-border services, it offers ShipX (shipping to 220+ countries and territories), CargoX (cross-border B2B & bulk shipping) and LaunchX (end-to-end unified retail enablement solution). In growth & marketing, it offers check-out (effortless single-click checkout solution), Engage 360 (whatsapp-centric marketing solutions), Promise (EDD and trust badges for e-commerce) and ONDC (enhanced digital visibility).
Tech-powered products
In terms of Financial Services & Capital, Shiprocket offers merchants flexible capital up to Rs30 crore in just two days. It offers revenue-based financing, no-equity dilution, easy repayment terms and quick disbursal. It is a secure, easy and ‘quick financing from top’ provider and helps merchants, especially SMBs, to manage operations efficiently.
We act as an e-commerce aggregator, integrating multiple courier partners to offer businesses optimized, cost-effective shipping
Shiprocket’s AI-enabled products, such as Sense, help merchants turn data into power, with APIs. Sence can field operations with accurate deliveries; reduce RTOs and return rates; prevent frauds; leverage address and risk intelligence to minimise address inaccuracies and delivery failures.
Shiprocket has unbundled next-gen AI APIs and put the power of trusted APIs to use for end-to-end verification. “Merchants can now take full control of field operations for more visibility, near-perfect accuracy and minimised losses. This provides risk intelligence (prevent potential fraud threats by assessing various parameters and reduce costs by 30 per cent); address standardisation (improve delivery performance by 60 per cent, refine addresses, eliminate ambiguity and ensure accuracy with precise auto-fill, covering PIN codes, cities and more); validate addresses for accuracy, significantly reducing overhead costs by 80 per cent and optimise logistics costs). It can also check out intelligence (enable fast transactions, predict delivery dates and serviceability accurately and optimise conversion by 50 per cent)”, adds Goel.
Shiprocket’s value-added services include: Returns Management, Delivery Boost, Delight Tracking, Instant COD, Instant Pick Up, Shiprocket Prime, Omuni, Packaging, Co-Pilot, Instant Exchange and Express Shipping, among others. It had revenues of about Rs1,316 crore in 2023-24, making it the largest (revenue wise) horizontal e-commerce enablement platform registered in India. It also has the largest active merchant base in this segment as of 2023-24, as per informed industry sources. It has a network of over 250 ecosystem partners in India to support merchants across the e-commerce transaction journey. It is the only platform integrating pre-order demand generation with logistics amongst the horizontal e-commerce enablement platform registered in India, as per informed industry sources.
Additionally, Shiprocket’s cross-border services play a pivotal role in helping Indian merchants expand globally. By simplifying the complexities of international shipping and reducing compliance burdens, these services enable businesses to seamlessly navigate global markets and reach a wider customer base. Shiprocket plans to strengthen its warehousing and fulfilment network to enable faster deliveries. It also plans to continue expanding its network of shipping partners and logistics providers, as well as investing in its technology platform to offer more features and services to its customers.