From just an idea to a successful B2B company: Pumpkart seeks to secure its position as a leading Branded e-commerce company in the Indian market

Pumpkart came into limelight when Sundar Pichai, Google CEO, cited Pumpkart’s success story in his speech before PM Narendra Modi at the ‘Digital India’ dinner for top tech CEOs at San Jose, California, USA. Recently the company has signed Kapil Dev as the Brand Ambassador for Pumpkart and to endorse the brand, Panatech. At the moment, Pumpkart is working on B2B Concept and trying to meet all the requirements in the appliances, hardware and industrial supply market, which is estimated at $250 billion hence making it a one-stop solution for all retailers. Mr. Bhatia aims to build India’s largest B2B Company by integrating O2O technology.

Having started with the B2C segment, Pumpkart revised to B2B platform by launching the white label brands. “Since we are working in a very unorganized segment, we have taken the steps to promote our company on the basis of technology; as in the upcoming times only the technology-based companies will sustain”, says Mr. K.S Bhatia, CEO. Also, Pumpkart doesn’t bind itself to sell just one product. It is coming up with a complete range of products and to increase its market visibility; the company has launched a Pumpkart display van that can move out in the urban, suburban and rural areas to make people aware of its products available.

Mr. K.S Bhatia, Pumpkart CEO, spoke exclusively to The Silicon Review. Below is an excerpt.

How successful was your first project? Share the experience.

In the initial stages, we started with the B2C platform. To promote the product and the company, we had to work out and promote the brand through basic marketing tools like Google Adwords and social media platforms . Back then the expenditure was high and the revenue generated was low. Since this is an unorganized segment, there were many brands and no regularization of prices existed. We added up about 250 brands and promoted them through this platform. Sustaining with the single product was difficult, and hence we revised the model to B2B and worked in a hybrid model.

“Earning trust and respect of consumers all around the world is possible through a consistent focus on delivering high quality in all of our actions.” How do you interpret this statement?

Acquiring customers and retaining them for a longer period demands consistent efforts and services from the company end. If the company doesn’t abide by the customer service metrics, then getting the trust of the customer is very difficult. However, if the company’s philosophy is focused on treating customers with respect and appreciation, it becomes easy to set a foothold in the market.

Our customer services put customer satisfaction at the forefront thus promoting the development of a long-term relationship. It is a high priority for us to provide high satisfaction with product performance to our customers. We also offer proper discounts, credits, and rewards to the customer so as to achieve and maintain their trust.

Fostering a culture of feedback is crucial to the success of every organization. How is this true with your company?

Feedback is a critical factor for determining the success of an organization. Feedback, whether it’s internal or external, should be taken in a positive outlook, keeping in mind the area and necessity to improve. Feedback pushes employees and organization to a higher level of performance. At Pumpkart, we wish to create an open and feedback oriented company culture that would enable people to come up and share their experience and feedbacks. The feedback can then be evaluated further to analyze where we need to change and take necessary actions to increase the productivity, effectiveness, and efficiency.

Trust is a difficult attribute to measure and a delicate dynamic to maintain. How do you maintain this with your clients?

It’s truly said that trust is a difficult factor to measure and maintain. From our end, we try to deliver what we can commit to. Commitment can be taken as the highest attribute that is given to the customer as this Commitment will evaluate the level of trust the customer will develop on the company.

Do you have any new products ready to be/getting ready to be launched?

Yes, there are many products and services as well that are in the pipeline. With the view to expand we are coming up with a complete range of products in our B2B Segment like Kitchen Appliances, Home Appliances, Hardware, Saintary Ware and Industry Supply products which will be promoted in the market through the platform of technology. We have increased the range of products in our catalog of our brand Panatech. To name a few our Proucts range includes products like water purifier, Mixer Juicer, Irons and many more. Apart from this we have near about launched 4 service centers for Pumpkart Services and we aim to launch near about 50 service centers in Northern India  to cater to the requirement of services of multi brand products under one roof.

As a question on sustainability, where do you see your company a couple of years from now?

We wish to create India’s largest B2B Technology based company by collaborating with retailers, industries, and corporates. Services will be the main aspect and USP of the company. After struggling with ups and downs on a daily basis, we have somehow developed a strong visibility in the market. We are increasing the parameter and products so as to engage more and more customers with us and retain them. We are also bringing up a technology with the concept of expanding. Through this technology, we would reach Pan India. Hence, in the coming 3-4 years, I can say that we would emerge as India’s largest technology-based B2B Company. We are claiming this as we have some hidden ideas with us which not available with other tech companies as well and as soon as these ideas will come into conceptualization, realization and implementation on a larger scale it will drive the complete business and help us to achieve our vision.

Meet the promising leader

Mr. K.S Bhatia, Founder & CEO

Mr. K.S BHATIA is a visionary and diligent entrepreneur with MBA from IMT Ghaziabad. His unmatched temperament, dedication and 18 years of experience in the pump industry has made him a seasonal professional. His first successful venture, Airfluid which he started in 1998 was purely an offline business. After this he decided to take his business online and  this eventually led him to step into the burgeoning Indian e-commerce space. He studied the market and launched Pumpkart.com in May 2014, as a B2C platform, to sell water pumps online. He want to make Pumpkart as one of the leading B2B branded company as he still feels that there are only few startup companies in India like oyo, Ola, Paytm, flipkart, byju’s and few more who have emerged like a brand.

“I believe that a true entrepreneur is a dreamer and a doer.”