Kotak Network is an e-commerce platform designed to be as free as possible to support MSME's growth. Especially for solopreneurs wearing multiple hats everyday.
Entrepreneurs entering the market will start off with the usual basic channels to market their product/service. i.e. Instagram and Facebook.
The usual spiel requires an entrepreneur to open an account on Instagram, find a clever username, research hashtags to compete against and actively post trendy pictures and videos. Likewise for setting up a Facebook page and joining Facebook groups to promote their products. And if the sellers put in extra effort, they would connect both Instagram and Facebook accounts together to cross-post and schedule their posts for content marketing strategy.
Lastly, they would need to have a Business Whatsapp account number to start receiving communications/orders/support directly to their phone or the Whatsapp web. The problem starts when customers tries to do business with this kind of set up.
- Instagram doesn't offer a search feature - that resorts customers to doom-scroll to find the product that they wanted to order/buy from that seller.
- Facebook Page not always up-to-date - Although it has a search feature to filter down the post to find the product, it still gets mixed up with other un-related posts.
- Manual order management - Normally sellers would receive orders via Whatsapp and not stored in any database. If the seller wants to manage these orders, they would need to enter into an excel workbook or Google sheets or some other means to track whether the order has been paid or delivered or packed, etc.