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Ecommerce and logistics company Anchanto has launched a new software platform that helps merchants, brands, and distributors sell products on a multitude of marketplaces. The product, called SelluSeller, was announced today during a company event in Singapore.
Users can manage their inventory and simultaneously upload their listings to several ecommerce websites, including Lazada, Matahari, and Flipkart. They no longer have to repeat the process for each individual site. SelluSeller allows merchants to sell cross-border and connect to logistics and warehousing services from Anchanto’s network in Southeast Asia.
“We wanted to connect brands and sellers to marketplaces,” Anchanto co-founder and CEO Vaibhav Dabhade said during the event. “You can outsource your logistics, including cross-border, and manage your brand’s online presence with one click.”
If Anchanto’s current services are Facebook, SelluSeller is its Facebook Messenger.
Anchanto targets both smaller sellers that have fewer than 1,000 sales per month as well as large brands and distributors. For the former, it charges a flat fee of US$21 per month. The latter pay US$0.07 per order.
However, the company offers sellers the option to use third-party logistics providers that are already Anchanto clients and part of its warehouse management and fulfillment management network. If they do, SelluSeller becomes free to use.
The play is to create an ecosystem that revolves around Anchanto’s services. As these are its main source of revenue, the company hopes to drive more users toward them. If its current services are Facebook, SelluSeller is its Facebook Messenger, as Vaibhav puts it.
Future plans include connecting the SelluSeller platform with a point-of-sale system that Anchanto can offer to merchants who don’t have such a solution ready.
Anchanto expects to have more than 5,000 merchants and brands on SelluSeller in the next four to five months. It has been working with Lazada to develop and test the software, and the Southeast Asian ecommerce dynamo is one of its first partners.
Other partners include luxury product distribution firm Bluebell Group, lifestyle and apparel distributor JayGee Group, and global market expansion company DKSH. Altogether, the product pilot includes 55 brands and distributors.
SelluSeller enables merchants to sell on a multitude of online marketplaces. Image credit: Anchanto.
Riding the ecommerce wave
SelluSeller is an evolution of the company’s channel management services and expands Anchanto’s products, which until now focused mostly on global fulfillment, cross-border shipping, and warehouse management for clients like Levis and Groupon. The company has also helped businesses from Europe get their products on marketplaces like Qoo10, Lazada, Flipkart, and more.
The SelluSeller concept sounds similar to Ship.li, an idea for a unified online storefront that took care of the whole ecommerce process from online listing to logistics and delivery. Anchanto was working on it a couple of years ago but the project didn’t pan out.
Anchanto expects to have more than 5,000 merchants and brands on SelluSeller in the next four to five months.
“Ship.li was ahead of its time and uptake was difficult,” Vaibhav tells Tech in Asia. The company stepped back from it and focused on its warehouse management and logistics side. SelluSeller feels like Anchanto is picking that thread back up and following it a little more gingerly.
The company raised an undisclosed amount for its series B round in November 2015 from Japanese process outsourcing company Transcosmos. The deal allowed Anchanto to expand its services to countries like Indonesia, Thailand, Japan, Korea, and the US.
At the time, Anchanto reported a gross merchandise volume (GMV) of US$19 million. Vaibhav says the company’s overall GMV has almost doubled in the time since the series B round, while revenue grew by 75 percent in 2016, although he doesn’t provide more specific figures.
Converted from Singapore dollars. US$1 = S$1.42
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