Online wholesale marketplace Wydr makes retail purchasing easy

Retailers often travel to multiple cities for procuring products at competitive rates. In tier-II and -III cities, they do not have direct access to better products at lower rates.
 

Manufacturers and distributors, on the other hand, do not get access to markets beyond their respective regions because the wholesale supply chain in India is fragmented and unorganised.
 

Wydr, a Gurugram-based online marketplace, has a solution. Launched in March 2016, the start-up brings wholesalers, manufacturers, and retailers on one platform.
 

“Wholesalers and retailers did not have a technology platform where they could discover and transact directly and conveniently. That’s why we came up with the concept of Wydr.in,” said Devesh Rai, founder. Rai, who had co-founded ShopClues, formed Wydr with Hitha Uchil and Varun Kumar. 
 

“Retailers no longer have to travel long distances to procure goods. They can sit in their shops and order goods from any part of the country,” he said.
 

Wydr.in provides complete marketplace platform services, including technology, marketing, payment, logistics, customer care and billing, and payment to wholesale traders.
 

It deals in products across around 20 categories, such as mobiles, electronics, fashion and home. The company claims the largest inventory of products across categories; around 850,000 products are available.
 

Wyder’s platform has around 1.2 million users, including 5,000 manufacturers and wholesalers. It services retailers in 22,000 pin code locations across the 29 states.
 

According to Rai, Wydr is “unique” because wholesalers and retailers can negotiate and customise orders, like they do in a real market.
 

He sees opportunities in the online B2B market, estimated to be $700 billion and expected to reach $1 trillion by 2022. Rai said, “Over last year, we have been able to make a mark and are growing at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 56.6 per cent... We have over one million retailers onboard in a short time.” 
 

It registered $30 million in sales this year and expects to touch $40 million in 2018-19 and $100 million in 2019-20.

The start-up generates transactional and non-transactional revenues. Transactional revenues are primarily through orders placed on the marketplace, which vary 3 per cent to 20 per cent on sales. Non-transactional revenues cover advertising-led opportunities, monthly virtual exhibitions for different categories, premium features and services. It aims to achieve break-even in 18 months.
 

Wydr.in raised Series-A funding in November 2016, and a round of seed funding in February 2016 from Jungle Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners and Stellaris Venture Partners. In February, it had raised another round from Jungle Ventures and Stellaris Venture Partners.
 

The firm plans to use the new capital to strengthen its seller and buyer base and set up pan-India offices.

“Our focus will be on key manufacturing, import and wholesale hubs. We are also looking at strengthening product and technology offerings for better customisation to our vertical-focused buyer base and enable deeper engagement between the platform and its users,” added the founder.