Staying committed to delivering fresh produce to end-consumers while also benefiting farmers and women resellers in the process, Otipy, India’s leading social commerce platform for fresh produce managed by Crofarm, has announced its expansion plans. As part of this expansion strategy, the company is planning to extend its services to Bhiwadi, a city in the Alwar district of Rajasthan. It also aims to launch its solutions to 10 more tier 2 and 3 cities like Jhajjar, Sonepat, Panipat, Rewari, Kaarnal, Palwal, Rohtak, etc in the next 6 months.
Over the years, the platform has constantly endeavored to augment its supply chain, to reach more and more people, especially those hailing from the tier 2 and 3 geographies, who haven’t shopped online yet. To achieve this objective, Otipy has been leveraging the social commerce platform and making the process of shopping for fresh produce not only seamless but also rewarding for everyone associated with it.
In its recent survey comprising 1000 Otipy users, the company observed that 50% of its respondents had made their first online purchase through Otipy. 72% of users are aged more than 35 years, while 40% are over 45 years. These users are classified as traditional offline shoppers, who have shifted to online shopping with Otipy. Over 74% of the users have heard about this platform from the WhatsApp groups of friends and family. Currently, India has 40 Cr WhatsApp users and only 10 Cr online shoppers. As a WhatsApp-integrated social commerce platform, Otipy aims to tap into these 30 Cr first-time online shoppers.
With its further expansion plans to tier 2 & 3 cities, Otipy aims to extend its range of offerings to this cohort and give them opportunities to shop and consume fresh produce at the most affordable rates. Moreover, it’s a truism that people develop trust when they do shopping based on each other’s recommendations. The idea is to leverage this element and make Otipy the most preferred platform for shoppers across India.
Commenting on the new development, Mr. Varun Khurana, Founder, Otipy said, “Social commerce has played a pivotal role in bringing customers, especially women, to our platform and leverage it as a tool to shop fresh produce. While we are already catering to over 5,000 daily orders from one lakh customers in Delhi and NCR, we are now focusing on expanding our reach and services to tier 2 and 3 cities, where people are unaware of our platform. Our new expansion plan is completely designed to cater to this audience and help them become familiar with our platform and encourage them to use it more often for all their daily requirements of fresh groceries.”
He further added, “Anybody using WhatsApp can easily use our app for online orders. In fact, we also address problems using WhatsApp only. This makes everything so much easy for users as people across India are already acquainted with WhatsApp and use it regularly, mainly for communication purposes. At Otipy, we are striving to help them understand that our platform is as easy as using WhatsApp. To simplify it further, we are planning to launch new features such as vernacular content and voice recognition on our platform, especially for people who don’t understand English very well.”
Currently, fresh grocery is a USD 200 billion market in India. However, of this figure, less than 1% accounts for online grocery. Otipy aspires to promote this segment by creating awareness around its benefits across people who haven’t experienced them yet. With an in-depth understanding of fresh produce backed by robust technology solutions, not only does it generate earning opportunities for women resellers, but it also benefits farmers and end-consumers through desired payments and fresh produce, respectively. With its latest initiative, the platform reaffirms its vision and takes its services to first-time online users.
About Otipy
Otipy is a B2B2C social commerce platform for fresh produce in India and works closely with reseller partners,primarily women and neighborhood stores. Otipy focuses on-demand harvesting as per predicted demand to keep minimum wastage through state-of-the-art technology used for procurement, distribution and delivery.
