Just Buy Live’ Going Against The Trend With A ‘Brands to Retailers’ (B2R) Business Model
Founded and incorporated in February 2015 – Just Buy Live is owned and operated by Just Buy Live Enterprise Private Limited. It is claimed to be world’s first E-Distributor.
In simple terms, supplying goods directly from Brands to Retailers (B2R) is the Business Model of Just Buy.
In a bullish market where eCommerce is seen to be stealing the customers with their mouth-watering discounted deals, Just Buy is a ray of hope with a mission to empower offline retailers.
Their simple and clever mobile application offers an E-Distribution platform that successfully bridges the gap between all kinds of stores or retailers and brands.
They are attempting to directly connect every major brand across multiple categories to every retailer across the nation. Due to this, any or all the retailers are able to have access of millions of products across hundreds of categories from thousands of brands, under just one roof.
Just Buy features thousands of products across more than 20 retail categories including – FMCG, packaged food, water & beverages, mobile accessories, lighting & electrical, mobiles & consumer durables, watches, auto accessories & auto parts, sports goods, apparel, toys & games, software, cosmetics, religious articles, industrial supplies and a lot more…
They provide a democratic access to all the brands and retailers be it – paanwallas or restaurants, kiranas or supermarkets, chaiwallas or chemists, or anyone else…
These retailers can freely communicate directly with the brands, buy at any time of the day or night, take advantage of every scheme on offer presented by every brand or manufacturer, and get their orders delivered straight to their shops.
And it gets better – retailers can view the margins they are getting on every product and can accordingly order the items which offer the best rates.
You can make your payments using the variety of payment options they offer including – Net banking, Cash Wallets, Debit Cards, Credit Cards, Cash on Delivery, Credit/Debit Card on Delivery. Interestingly, you can also make payments using any of the aforementioned combinations.
But what is even more interesting and important to note is that, every retailer gets access to structured credit for their working capital needs from Just Pay’s ‘Udhaar’.
It is their payment processing system launched by ‘Just Pay Credit’ to offer pre-approved credit to retailers in partnership with Religare. A structured credit solution for every eligible retailer applicable on Just Buy’s app!
Udhaar is an attempt to solve one of the biggest problems of retailers of working capital. It helps them to reduce their dependency on distributors, suppliers and unorganised lenders. The best part is that, they have partnered with two financial institutions and has already pre-approved credit lines for over 20,000 Just Buy retailers.
To avail this service all you need to do is: – After registering as a retailer, you can instantly apply for the credit facilities from the app itself. All you need to do is – upload the required documents, and within 48-96 hours you will receive a notification of your credit eligibility and amount. To apply for credit you can also contact them via email at – udhaar@justbuylive.com.
If you wish to sign-up as a Retailer, all you need to do is – “Download the free mobile app, register your business, and start buying immediately!” To register, you can also email them at retailer@justbuylive.com
There are no sign-up fees, no minimum buys, no membership charges and no processing fees, however, the KYC (know your customer) process for on-boarding businesses is stringent, to ensure safety and security.
And, if you wish to register your brand, all you need to do is – simply e-mail Just Buy at brands@justbuylive.com, and someone from their brand management team will get back to them to help you sign up.
Although, their functionality and pricing are only available on verification of a valid business proof (VAT/TIN, Service Tax, Excise License, Trade License, Shops and Establishment License, Hawkers License).
What Are Their Strategies & Revenue Model?
To begin with – according to a recent report by Boston Consulting Group and Retailers Association of India, India’s retail market is expected to reach $1 trillion by 2020, which shall be driven due to income growth, urbanization and attitudinal shifts.
And, while the overall retail market is expected to grow at 12% annually, modern-day trade will expand at a much faster pace of 20%.
But fact also remains that, Retail is known to be one of the most fragmented sectors, where 92% of their business comes from the unorganized end.
‘Just Buy’ aims to reorganize, target and capture this market! But to do so, they have many problems to tackle first as well.
Since this industry is highly unorganized, as a whole, it is very hard to get retailers to believe that, technology is the ultimate solution to all their problems, and is actually a more efficient way of acquiring products.
To do so – Just Buy has made sure that their platform constantly remains dynamic, intuitive and user-friendly to both brands and retailers, thus ensuring ease of use while ordering. They also regularly create schemes and packages that help and benefit both – brands and retailers, which in turn benefits the consumer.
They have also maintained a sense of fairness for both the parties, in all aspects. For retailers – it democratises product access and unlocks higher profits, giving them a fair fighting chance. And for the brands – they get a bigger piece of the apple and touch a wider audience, unlimited scale and analytics!
To give you short insights about the benefits this app holds for Retailers and Brands: -
Benefits for Retailers
- Pricing: – Fair and transparent pricings with higher margins
- Brands: – More choice of brands to opt from
- Promotions: – Opportunity to choose from a variety of lucrative deals
- Technology: – Access to state-of-the-art and user friendly mobile technology
- Inventory: – Access to lean inventory with freed up working capital
- Logistics: – Strong supply chain
Benefits to Brand (Regional, National, MNCs and International)
- Retailers: – Opportunity to reach out to a wider range of retailers
- Communication: – Voice out to all the retailers via notifications & banners
- Promotions: – Promote your brand by offering schemes on the app
- Price: – Fair & transparent pricing mechanisms
- Analytics: – Get access to real time critical behaviour & pattern data
Just Buy has also recently rolled out a television advertisement campaign to build the brand and to create awareness amongst the small retailers, and has hired 1,000 people on contract to achieve that.
Other than that, to make sure that retailers are happy at all ends, Just Buy operates on a 10% margin and are free to buy the products from the company for about 5-10% cheaper than the traditional prices.
Who Are The Founders?
Just Buy was founded by Sahil Sani and Bharat Balachandran in Feb 2015. Together they are managing a team of 300 employees, along with more than 1000 delivery staff.
Unlike the recent trend, neither of the two are IIT or IIM grads or software engineers. Both of them are self-made entrepreneurs and have rich experience in creating, building and growing profitable businesses from scratch.
But what is common in the two is that, there is literally very limited information available about them, and they prefer to stay away from the lime light.
Sahil Sani
Currently the Chairman and CEO at Just Buy Live, Sahil has a 16 years of active background in sales and distribution.
He has completed his Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) from the Boston College and University of Michigan, and is married to Ramita.
He had begun his career with his first business ‘Saahil International’ in May 1999. Saahil International is a leading supplier to some of the major companies across the world for a range of products including – Packaging material, Packaging Material, Matches, Promotional Products, Tshirts, Hotel Supply, Health Care Products, Keychain, Tooth Brush, Plastic Bags, Diary, etc…
They are also the exclusive distributor in India for HARMAN’s JBL, Infinity and JBL Selenium branded aftermarket car audio products. He is also a multi-awarded entrepreneur
Bharat Balachandran
Again, a self-made man – Bharat is currently the Managing Director of Just Buy Live, and holds a 15-year history in debt syndication and M&As.
He began his career with his first business ‘Focus Consultancy and Services’. Established in October 1998 and with operations in Mumbai & Pune, Focus Consultancy is one of India’s leading distributors of Banking, Financial services and Insurance (BFSI) products. They also control one of the largest and best performing mortgage books in the west of India.
Personally, Bharat is a Bachelor’s in Architecture from BKPS College of Architecture in Pune. He was actively associated with the Bhuj earthquake relief work in Gujarat. He used teach part time and give career mentorship advices to Azad Nagar Slums. He is also the secretary of “Rotary Club of Thane Hills”.
What Is Their Story? How Has Their Growth Been So Far?
It all began during the Diwali of 2014!
eCommerce retailers had adopted unnatural discounting methods to lure the customers, causing nothing but great losses to traditional retailers. Brick & mortar retailers could do nothing but watch helplessly as their customers were being taken away by the online shops.
This was the moment which gave an end to the layered trade margin system, and all the pricing models that were relevant and respected for the last 100 years, went down the drains and were now being replaced with instant price discovery.
Shopkeepers and salesmen were constantly being taunted by customers showing off cheaper prices on their smartphones. These offline retailers even tried to confront their suppliers in hopes to find answers to counter these eCommerce companies.
That is when it occurred to Sahil and Bharat that technology was the real troublemaker and not those discounted prices, and hence, they decided to use this problem and transform it into an advantage. They thought of using this technology to try and help offline retailers to regain the lost power.
And after months of painstaking field research and hard work, Just Buy Live Enterprise Private Limited was founded in 2015.
The initial capital of $5 million used by the company came from Sahil!
Misconcepted by many – Just Buy was and is NOT an eCommerce company, but is a ‘new commerce’ firm. In their words – they are neither a marketplace nor a connections platform, but are much focused distributors.
To define Just Buy – they are a company which offers a democratic access to all, along with higher margins, organised credit, and all that through a simple mobile application.
And in over a period of roughly one year, Just Buy has gone on to acquire operations across 15 cities in 10 states. They have successfully managed to become official distributors of more than 1000+ biggest brands of India including – ITC, Pepsi, Dabur, Intex, Sony etc…, have got access and listings of more than 300,000 products, and account for inventory worth over Rs. 3000 crores.
To handle their deliveries effectively, Just Buy has also partnered with various third-party eCommerce delivery companies including GoJavas, Delhivery and FedEx.
More recently, the company has received their first external funding of $20 Mn from Mohandas Pai’s Arin Capital (Investor in YourStory.com) and Alpha Capital Advisors, a Mumbai based niche private equity investment management firm.
They would be using these funds to further develop their technology, and expand their network of retailers.
Going ahead – the company aims to reach 10,000 brands, 1 million products, 1 million retailers with ₹1000 crores in credit lines, and presence in more than 500 cities and towns by the end of 2016. They are also gearing up to touch ₹1000 crores in revenues by year end too!
