Update: Matrix Partners India have revealed that Limeroad raised approximately $5 million in the funding round.
A.M. Marketplaces has launched Limeroad.com, a social shopping platform targeted at women, which offers products from categories including apparel, accessories, home decor, and food.
Founded by Suchi Mukherjee, Manish Saksena and Ankush Mehra, the site has received funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Matrix Partners India. The exact details of the funding were not disclosed. We’ve written to Dev Khare of Lightspeed and will update this post as soon as we hear from him.
Portal: The portal allows users to shop, browse or flip through products from the company produced catalog or scrapbook. Customers can also browse products by city, brand, flagship store. To shop, users need to register an account with the website which can be done by using Facebook connect or by filling the registration form by submitting email address and password.
Social shopping: What’s interesting is, that the portal allows users to create a catalog (sort of a wish-list) from the available products on the website and categorize them into party wear, work attire, bollywood attire, hollywood attire, flirty, etc,. Users can then share their scrapbook or catalog with their network on Facebook. Once a user organizes a scrapbook, they and their friends can buy the products in the scrapbook all at once or one by one.
Products: The portal offers variety of products, essentially targeted at women, including apparel, beauty products, bags, accessories, footwear, and food items. The company also plans to introduce products in categories such as fitness, office accessories, and outdoor activities. The company claims that nearly half of the number of brands available on the website are exclusive with the portal.
What’s puzzling is that the company also offers snacks in its food section. While it includes products that are non-perishable, we feel the company is trying too many things and offering products that do not sync with other products offered on the website.
Payment and Shipping: Limeroad offers generic payment methods including Credit card (Master card to be activated soon), debit card, Netbanking and also offers Cash On Delivery (COD). However, it charges Rs. 50 for products ordered on COD. It offers free shipping for orders above Rs. 399 and charges Rs. 50 delivery charge for orders below Rs. 399. The company claims to deliver products within 2-3 working days in metro cities and 3-4 working days for other cities. It also claims to deliver products in cities where reputed courier service do not operate. For the same, the orders will be sent by Speed Post through the Indian Postal Service which may take 10-15 business days depending on the location.
Competition: While Limeroad caters to women-only customers, it essentially competes with Myntra.com, Styletag, which provides products from International and Indian designers. It also competes with Fashionandyou.com, which recently acquired online fashion and beauty retailer Urban Touch for $30 million.
Robemall Apparels Pvt Ltd which runs Zovi.com, a lifestyle apparel and accessory e-store, had also raised $10 million (~ Rs. 56 crore) in a series B round of funding from Tiger Global and SAIF Partners. Recently, Flipkart also added a clothing line to its product catalog, we believe it’s only a matter of time before Flipkart starts offering Women’s clothing line. Flipkart already offers beauty and healthcare products.
