How This Startup Is Catering To Real Life Problem In Logistic business – iThinkLogistics

The story behind the Idea – iThink Logistics & why the name – iThink Logistics, Inception date? 

Back in 2016, E-commerce was booming, and the existing solutions were failing to meet the customers’ unmet needs. Resulting in unfavorable conditions for e-commerce to grow. Logistics seemed to be a very exciting and challenging turning path wherein we would have an opportunity to cater to a bigger real-life problem.

So we started iThink logistics on 9th March 2016.
Inspired by Steve Jobs’ Apple, we inculcated the letter “i”, and from the start itself, it stands for Intelligent, constantly thinking(Which means innovating) and logistics. That’s why the word iThink logistics. 

Business Description. How does it work, and how do you operate? Journey of idea shaping into business – Share in Brief

Founded in 2016, With its headquarters in Mumbai. And offices in Surat and soon to open in Delhi and Bangalore.

We realized that eCommerce sellers were not given priority and importance by courier partners as they did not have the volume. Hence then was the biggest obstacle for eCommerce brands to grow in the Indian market. 

Another challenge that eCommerce faced was if they opted for a single courier partner, then they could be serviceable in a limited region only, and the onboarding process and customer support were also not efficient. 

Hence we decided how to heal the landscape by bringing multiple courier partners under one platform, which would give them more pin codes to deliver their products in India. Not only that, we decided to offer the best tech platform and customer support that would help the eCommerce seller to grow their business in India.

We developed a solution offering incredible products and services which will help small and medium sellers to grow. iThink Logistics is an end-to-end AI-enabled multiple courier aggregator shipping platform. 

The company’s cutting-edge online portal can be linked with marketplaces or online stores through APIs (for importing orders) and has a built-in channel that connects with multiple renowned courier partners. Users can also book parcel shipping services and print labels using the service. 

How & What iThink Logistics Is Doing Differently (USP) – What Problem iThink Logistics Is Solving?

Following are the pain area that we solved. 

• Using the power of aggregation they can reach out to 26,000 pin codes in one click. 
• By signing up with ITL, they can start shipping with all couriers in one click, without any hassle. 
• Using a recommendation engine, they can save a cost and still get the best courier partner for that specific pin code.
• Using Integration layer: They can integrate Shopify store, Amazon and other layers and ship centrally 
• For the service layer: They need to contact only one dedicated manager to solve any courier issues. Which they won’t get such excellent SLA while working with the direct courier.
• For Billing: They get centralized MIS and Billing with detail. Almost Zero-weight discrepancy. 
• For customer delightment: They get a white label awesome looking tracking page and timely notification of shipment tracking (SMS, Email, Whatsapp)
• Reducing RTO: Our 6 steps NDR action will reduce their returns and avoid fake comment from couriers. Our focus is to increase success ratio of shipment.  
• Early COD remittance seller that offers COD payment options to its sellers they get the money credited after 10 to 12 day; we offer 1 day, 2 day and 3 day COD payment that helps them in their cash liquidity for business.
• With Insightful Pincode analysis: We help them to focus on which demographic to work on more and which locations are performing poor for them. Where is good customer acceptance and where is not? 
• We are trying to help them deliver the product at ease, on time and in proper condition.
• We are offering them a complete end-to-end shipping service, so they don’t need multiple resources to handle different stages of online shipping.
• We are creating an awesome customer experience for sellers and also the Buyers.

Can tech-powered logistics players address the logistics gap in India & Why

Yes, the tech can bridge the gap in India by the most important missing link in the logistics sector was it lacked data; now, with the help of the tech-powered company, we can now collect, analyze and resolve the real-world problem with data.  

What are some of the challenges faced by the industry today?

The major challenges that the industry is facing today are as follows 

Higher RTO: This has a multiple dimension impact on brands higher RTO will lead to double the cost that the brand will have to pay also it will be a loss of customers and impact the top line of business as well. The end-user is also having a bad experience that will lead to poor ratings on social media.

What are your business challenges? 

We have limited control over the on-ground operation, especially with the delivery hub and delivery boy at times when the sellers want us to deliver the product and the customer wants it we try our best to put in the effort but in the end, the delivery boy is the decision-maker. 

Every brand wants a faster and on-time delivery but today due to infrastructure and human dependence it become very difficult to make that possible every time. 

Every e-commerce seller wants to deliver all the orders that they have received at a cheaper price and faster TAT. The eCommerce industry looks at logistics as the cost to business hence they try to cut costs by opting for a cheaper courier partner and when it comes to getting the desired result they are left dissatisfied. 

One of the major challenges is that the Indian user base opts for the COD mode of payment this gives the end-users to cancel or not accept the order at any time this is the biggest hurdle for eCommerce sellers in this situation leads to higher RTO leads to loss to a business. 

What growth do you foresee in the logistics sector in the next few years?

Post pandemic the e-commerce industry in India has grown exponentially (specifically from 2018 to 22) this led to a lot of new trends and opportunities that never existed before e.g. concepts like Dark store, same-day and next-day delivery. 

Future of logistics if we see is we will have a lot of new regional logistics companies(TIRUPATI Courier, MARUTI courier) making it to the national and international levels because of rising in new eCommerce entrants. 

We will be seeing Indian infrastructure becoming more developed and accessible which will lead to an increase in delivery rate and bring growth in the eCommerce market. 

Competitors – Direct, Indirect

Direct competitors-Shiprocket, pickrr, Shyplite, shipyaari, nimbuspost etc

Indirect competitors– Malls and offline stores.

What is the revenue model? How has the revenue grown? Growth, Revenue No. Customer no’s till date, Presence, A few Customers names

Some of the clients include Beardo, Blue Tokai, Zodiac and Upstox.

Future Growth.

Next launched in this year 2022 for growth is Dark stores in metro cities for d2c brands to enable quick commerce.

About Founding team, How I assembled my dream team.

Our CEO Vipul Yadav and co-founders Zaiba Sarang and bharat Karotra were already running a successful tech solution company called Depasser Infotech. During a conversation, Vipul’s friend and one of our current co-founders Paresh Parmar shared the gaps he had observed in the E-commerce logistics industry. Three of us had expertise in product development that we gained through our previous company. Then nikul Dodiya joined us. 5 of us started iThink logistics and realized that we had a solution that would satisfy the customer and create value in their life.