Mumbai-based startup Nest Childcare Services Pvt Ltd, which runs e-commerce site for new parents called Babyoye.com, claims to have reached gross merchandise value (GMV) of Rs 5.85 crores ($0.95 million) monthly. Sanjay Nadkarni, founder and CEO, Babyoye, said the e-tailer is doing around 1,500 orders a day with the average order value being Rs 1,300.
Earlier this year, Babyoye acquired Hoopos.com, another e-commerce site operating in the same space, in an all-stock deal. The combined venture also raised $12 million in a fresh round led by early stage venture capital firm Helion Venture Partners, with participation from Accel Partners and Tiger Global. Post merger, Hoopos started redirecting to Babyoye. Nadkarni said though Hoopos is no more functional, the firm will retain the Hoopos brand.
Babyoye was founded in 2010 by husband-wife duo Nadkarni and Arunima Singhdeo. Hoopos, on the other hand, started operation in 2011 and was founded by Vijay Jumani, Radhika Jumani, Raveen Sastry (co-founder and former VP, business development, Myntra.com) and Anubhav Sudha. Nadkarni said post-merger the Hoopos team joined Babyoye.
“The best thing to come out of this merger for us is that the teams have come together,” he said. Nadkarni stated that the startup is bullish on private label and looking at expanding the same. Babyoye already has private label brands for apparels and it is looking at launching its own labels in many other categories. “Private label currently contributes 12 per cent to the total sales and we expect this to reach about 18 per cent in six-12 months,” he said.
Babyoye deals in categories such as baby care products, baby clothes, furniture, toys and accessories, books and maternity care. One of its key competitors, Firstcry earlier told that its average order value is around Rs 1,000. In addition to online sales, Firstcry has ventured into offline selling by opening 26 physical stores in over 11 states. The startup expects to reach 250 million in GMV by 2015 with online and offline sales together. Other players in the category include Hushbabies.com and Flipkart which has recently added baby care products to its site.
Via: TechCircle
