Web-store Jaypore.com eyes offline presence

With experts sighting omni-channel strategy as the way forward for online as well as offline retailers, web-store Jaypore.com also plans to create an offline presence for customers, who give importance to touch and feel factor. Jaypore launched in 2011 by Shilpa Sharma and Puneet Chawla, boasts of around 15,000-30,000 visitors a day. It is also eyeing a funding boost of 10 million dollars (over Rs 60 crores) for brand building exercise.

The portal curates traditional handicraft products sourced from weavers, groups and designers from over 20 Indian states that include cotton fabric from Phulia, kantha from Murshidabad, kalamkari from Machlipatnam to silks from Bhagalpur, among others. The company is yet to decide on the way it would create an offline presence.

The start-up had earlier got Rs 3 crore funding from angel investor Haresh Chawla, former CEO of Network18. It closed last financial year with about Rs 15 crores in sales. First focusing on the American market, Jaypore shifted its attention to India and now witnesses almost 70 percent of revenues driven by domestic customers. It also ships products across apparel, silver jewellery, art, among others, to over 15 countries.