InMobi Group's e-commerce model to mirror physical 'bazaar' feel

Start-up major InMobi is all set to battle it out with the big boys in India’s e-commerce sweepstakes.

InMobi’s mobile content platform, Glance, which was launched two years ago and is already a unicorn, recently raised over $145 million in a funding round led by Google. It is now working on an e-commerce model which is different from the likes of Amazon, Flipkart or Jio in that it replicates the physical ‘bazaar’ concept on a digital platform.

Glance’s e-commerce platform will offer influencer-led impulsive buying (the influencers will become sellers) of products, ranging from fashion accessories to electronics, consumer goods and even gourmet food, among others.

The firm is building an end-to-end e-commerce infrastructure through partnerships with logistics, packing and payment firms to provide last mile delivery to consumers. 

Glance, which currently provides a feed of entertainment, news, sports and video game oncent on mobile phone lock screens, has already garnered over 125 million users. Out of this, over 100 million daily users are in India, who would be leveraged to monetise the e-commerce platform.

The InMobi Group, which last year bought over Roposo, a short video platform similar to the now banned Chinese app TikTok, has integrated the product with Glance. The company has tied up with android mobile device players such as Xioami, Samsung and Vivo, amongst others, and the service is pre-installed in their phones.

Elaborating on InMobi’s e-commerce foray, Naveen Tewari, founder and CEO of the Group, says: “We expect to launch the e-commerce platform in the next six months. We are building a bazaar in the digital space, where the influencers on our platform will push the products, which you can buy directly and we will fulfil it. We will own the consumer experience. We are going to be an e-commerce platform with a difference.”

Tewari says that unlike the big players in the space, InMobi will not invest in e-commerce infrastructure. Instead, the company will tie up with partners. “The advantage is that today there are various players in each part of the e-commerce supply chain — such as logistics, packaging, delivery and payments. All we have to do is integrate these partnerships to provide end-to-end service to the customer,” says Tiwari.

He adds that consumers buy two types of goods – necessities like foods and groceries and those that are non-essential, impulse buys. InMobi’s e-commerce foray will focus only on the latter, Tewari says.

While India is the first place where InMobi’s e-commerce platform will roll out, the plan is to replicate the model in other countries. Glance itself is already available in southeast Asian countries and has plans to go to other parts of the world.

InMobi, an advertising solutions company for the mobile platform, was Tiwari and his co-founders’ first foray into the global digital space. It has created a niche for itself in the digital marketing space, even though the market is controlled by Facebook and Google globally.