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Growing up in Guwahati, I saw first-hand how people in small towns thought little of online shopping. Even after explaining the benefits of buying through e-commerce, I noticed a trust deficit in my friends and family. This behaviour inspired the observation that people interacted very differently with commerce. Their needs and aspirations were very different. My modest upbringing and experience helped me realize that the small towns spread across India represent a vast, underserved market and a massive opportunity for e-commerce but there was a caveat. People in small towns make decisions after considering the preferences of their friends and families. The problem is even more pronounced for e-commerce, people have a trust deficit, are extremely price conscious and love buying together socially.
That’s when my best friend- Kulapradip and I, decided to tap into this opportunity of online shopping by making it a fun and interactive experience through ‘Gobillion’. My personal and professional experiences shaped my idea of bringing e-commerce 2.0 to small towns in India, which represent a massive, underserved market. On Gobillion, group buying happens when a consumer finds a particular deal and shares it with their contact network, mostly through the messaging app WhatsApp. If another person joins in on the deal, the price of that item decreases. It keeps decreasing as more and more people get in on the deal.
When people share deals with their friends through WhatsApp for discounts, they are totally involved in the process and it then becomes a game for them to buy. This idea was well appreciated and picked up momentum sooner than expected.
Our mission at Gobillion is to make e-commerce social and accessible to the next 500M customers in Tier 2+ cities in India. Customers can buy together in groups and get great deals. Recently, Gobillion got backed by YCombinator in S21 and marquee investors from US, India, and SE Asia. I am happy to share that Gobillion is named YCombinator's Top 10 Global Startups for 2021 by Alex Mitchell.