It’s safe to say that India is witnessing an explosion of creative entrepreneurship. Every other person is starting their own business, selling anything from kawaii handmade phone charms to coastal grandma crochet sweaters. Fuelled by the power and reach of Instagram, this demographic of digital-native entrepreneurs skews younger and younger. But shopping from small businesses on Instagram is all fun and games until you actually have to place an order. Amid a barrage of “pp” enquiries (short for ‘price please’), you have to rush to be the first to book a piece in the comments section. Then you patiently wait for a DM from the seller to confirm your order and share payment details.
As stress-inducing as this process is for customers, it’s not like the entrepreneurs behind these shops are having an easy time either. More often than not, they are manually replying to each comment, addressing queries via DMs and keeping tabs on shipping for upwards of hundreds of orders, all single-handedly. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Enter: The new wave of e-commerce aggregators tailored for small businesses. With a creator-first approach, these platforms are engaging with the confluence of creativity, content, and commerce to forever change our buying patterns.
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