As local language-led social commerce is still a nascent sector, women sellers are also keen to learn the tricks of the trade according to founders of social platforms.
BENGALURU: Women entrepreneurs are emerging as dominant sellers on social commerce sites as collaborative shopping tools and local language interfaces attract a new wave of customers from smaller towns and cities.
A slew of new formats for online commerce in local languages including chats, videos, and live in-app telecast, is opening more avenues for women to become micro-entrepreneurs according to several investors and founders who spoke to ET about this growing trend.
“Women (sellers) in general have a 20% higher average order value and are also able to garner three to four times higher repeat orders ,” said Akshay Ghulati, cofounder of Shiprocket, a logistics technology platform for small businesses.
In a study of about 1,900 online sellers, Shiprocket found that outside of the top online marketplaces — a segment dominated by Flipkart and Amazon — women sellers, led largely by micro-sales on social commerce sites, account for a fourth of overall online retail. 68% of these women hail from smaller towns such as Kanchipuram, Thane, and Jaipur.
The study attributes the dominance of women sellers in this category to the rise of social media and social commerce platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Shopify, Meesho, WMall, Bulbul and Mall91, as well as greater adoption of local language-based social commerce platforms.
Fashion, beauty, and home categories, which have a large selection, continue to be the top-selling segments with orders priced on an average at less than Rs 1,000, the Shiprocket study found.
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In a study of about 1,900 online sellers, Shiprocket found that outside of the top online marketplaces — a segment dominated by Flipkart and Amazon — women sellers, led largely by micro-sales on social commerce sites, account for a fourth of overall online retail. “Women for the first time are taking centrestage in driving ecommerce adoption and opening up new categories dominated by unbranded products which need a layer of trust…,” said Rishabh Verma, founder, WMall, a social commerce platform which solely focusses on women consumers.
“This is where women sellers are stepping up to bridge the trust gap and in turn earn a livelihood for themselves,” he said.
Venture capital investors are of the view that while business models can differ across social commerce companies, growth in the sector will be driven by the next 500 million internet users in India whose preferences will depend on language, community and price points.
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“Their internet habits are yet to be shaped and will be content and discovery heavy,” said Mukul Arora, a partner at venture fund SAIF Partners, which is an early investor in WMall, Sharechat and Meesho.
“Therefore a new set of solutions will have to be defined for the segment,” he said.
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As local language-led social commerce is still a nascent sector, women sellers are also keen to learn the tricks of the trade according to founders of social platforms.
“We have creators who guide these women (sellers) on how to go about it and build a career,” said Pulkit Agrawal, cofounder of Trell, a Bengaluru-based commerce platform.
How Kalpana Chawla, Sunita Williams & Other Women Across The World Fared In Space
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Last week saw the first all-women team doing a spacewalk, but how have other women fared at the final frontier?
Last week saw the first all-women team doing a spacewalk, but how have other women fared at the final frontier?
The Soviet pilot-cosmonaut was the first woman to do a spacewalk, when she flew to the space station Salyut 7 in December 1981. Later, speaking of her time in outer space, she recalled encountering sexism.
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Chiaki was the first Japanese woman in space, a feat she accomplished when she went aboard space shuttle Columbia in July 1994. Four years later, she became the first Japanese citizen to have two space flights.
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Indo-US astronaut Sunita Williams holds the record of the longest space flight by a woman. In all, she has been on seven spacewalks. In August 2007, she also became the first person to run a marathon in space.
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Collins was a NASA astronaut who became the first female pilot and first female commander of a space shuttle, the STS-93 mission, that was launched in July 1999. She also became the first astronaut to fly the shuttle through a complete 360-degree manoeuvre.
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Chawla became the first woman of Indian descent to go into space, although she was with NASA. She was one of the seven members on the ill-fated space shuttle Columbia, which disintegrated upon atmospheric entry, killing all seven in 2003.
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Tereshkova is the first and youngest woman to have flown in space, with a solo mission on the Vostok 6 in June 1963. Upon her return, she was given the title ‘Hero of the Soviet Union’.
Tereshkova is the first and youngest woman to have flown in space, with a solo mission on the Vostok 6 in June 1963. Upon her return, she was given the title ‘Hero of the Soviet Union’.
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