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Sreejita Deb, founder and CEO of a beauty-focused social commerce platform, always knew she’d run her own company. With an MBA from Harvard Business School under her belt and stints at big tech companies like Google, Amazon, and mobile advertising firm InMobi in her home country of India, she decided in 2018 it was time to start her own business.
“Social business was one of the trends I noticed. With the increasing use of social media [in the region]basically anyone can open an online store, and social media platforms will only continue to grow,” Deb said. CASIA “I saw it as a tailwind. It is very similar to what I have done in the past when I worked in e-commerce companies.
Deb discusses where she will start her new career. Two countries were options: India and Indonesia. Notably, these two markets were “most mature” in terms of social media platform usage, with Indonesia accounting for 150 million active users and India accounting for 230 million active users at the end of 2018.
After checking Instagram user statistics, she decided to start in Indonesia as it has a higher proportion of female users compared to India. “It was a place where women could buy from each other and create a social network supported by women. That was the idea. It’s what I want to do for the next 15 years of my life,” said Deb.
Deb’s first business project was an e-commerce platform for Indonesian influencers and a beauty brand incubator. She needed a co-founder, and after posting an ad on LinkedIn, she met Guo Xing Lim, then Alibaba’s business manager. The duo launched Creator Co in early 2019.
Although they initially targeted the Indonesian market, Deb and Guo decided to base the new company in Singapore, as it was “more suitable for the company’s regional scale needs.” Also, it is a great hub for products, technology and marketing functions because of the wide talent pool,” said Deb.
In the year In April 2019, the company rebranded as Raena. Three months later, Binnext received $1.82 million in seed funding from Binos, Strive and other angel investors. That same year, Rana signed deals with several Indonesian influencers to develop new beauty brands, including Moonella Sunshine Jo, a baby influencer with over 1.2 million followers on Instagram. Rana has developed several products with the Jo family under the brand Lalaby, such as balms, shampoos and soaps.
After Raena released its first original products, Deb saw people ordering weekly batches and reselling them through social media and e-commerce platforms like Shopee and Tokopedia. “they [resellers] It comprised about 70% of our product sales at the time. We understand that people buy from sellers because they offer a conversational experience that is key to beauty, content and trust,” she said, referring to the chat and consultation options offered by major e-commerce platforms.
Deb decided to take advantage of this development. In the year In 2020, she built the business as an e-commerce beauty products platform with resellers as her main customers. “While the number of influencers is limited, there are potentially millions of sellers that we can tap into.”
Focus on resellers
Raena no longer deals with any original brands with influencers, but offers a network of resellers of beauty and skin care products from South Korea, Indonesia, Japan, and the United States to college students, housewives, and others looking to supplement their income online. Sales.
The platform aims to solve three main problems faced by resellers: limited access to manufacturers, competitive pricing and distribution problems.
“Even though sellers can sell thousands of units every month, big brands don’t pay attention to them because they’re focused on big retailers,” says Deb. “Therefore, these resellers do not get special pricing privileges. They also need to think about capital and inventory, where to put all the unsold goods. Raena develops a dropshipping model to solve those problems.
The company usually offers a catalog of available products that sellers on Instagram, Shopee or Tokopedia choose to “stock” their online stores. When a customer buys a product, the seller orders it from Rana, which ships the product directly to the customer. The system lowers the entry point because they don’t have to spend capital to get the right merchandise before their store goes online. Rena handles the warehousing, packaging and shipping logistics for her clients. Dealers earn 60% of the completed transaction, says Deb.
The company also provides marketing services to brands. “We run campaigns on the platform to give them visibility,” Deb said. Commission payments from sellers are the company’s main source of income.
Raena already has more than 10,000 sellers on the platform. More than 45% said they are active sellers on the platform without disclosing their average monthly transactions. “Not everyone can be an entrepreneur, and not everyone can be a re-seller. Some of them screw up,” she says.
One way to help resellers grow their businesses is through education, Deb says. Raena actively shares informative content on his Instagram page and holds regular webinars on the market and the latest trends. In this way, traders can get more information about which products can sell well and how to effectively market them. “For example, marketers can learn which products are effective at clearing acne or brightening dull skin, and then they can do more targeted marketing.”
Resellers can earn an average of $300 per month on the platform, Deb said. However, in some cases the income may exceed this amount. Deb cites the case of a reseller who, thanks to a network of 83,000 followers on Supu, was able to earn nearly $3,000 in gross monthly income six months after joining Rena.
Using social media platforms for e-commerce operations
According to a 2020 study by marketing company Redsear, beauty was the second largest category in the social e-commerce space after fashion. According to the report, the volume of orders from social commerce channels will double in 2020 as more sellers and buyers migrate from offline stores to online channels such as Instagram and Facebook.
Social media platforms are also expanding their business offerings, and after Facebook launched Facebook Shops in May last year, Instagram Shopping was finally available in Indonesia in October 2019. This year, in April, TikTok launched its live streaming e-commerce business. Following these developments, Deb is optimistic about Rana’s future.
“I think it’s to our advantage when social media platforms start e-commerce features. Let’s say they’re providing the shelf and checkout,” she said. “Basically, we’re giving sellers access to products to market on these digital shelves. All these platforms offer additional shelves and checkout counters to fill, thus making our business model richer.
Following a $9 million Series A funding round from Alpha Wave Incubation and Alpha JWC Ventures, Raina is now focused on growing its team in Indonesia from 70 to 100 members. He has an ambitious goal of reaching 100,000 resells on the platform by the end of this year.
The company is looking to sign exclusive deals with 15 new brands before 2022. “We’re going to use the money to double what we’re doing now,” Deb said.
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