By Ravi Mathur, CEO, GS1 India
Online retailing in India is growing exponentially with millions of shoppers searching online for a wide range of merchandise through just a click of a button.
Online marketplaces are listing thousands of suppliers/sellersto draw prospective shoppers to their shopping portals with an ever-increasing range of products.
This presents a huge opportunity to SMEs to expand their reach, without having to incur enormous marketing costs, and gain a level-playing field with big brands.
Online marketplaces struggle with sourcing of new products and suppliers to retain their current customer base and attract new shoppers. For this, they depend largely on crowd-sourced information, which tends to be highly unreliable, inaccurate and even malicious, at times.
Major online marketplaces, which include Amazon, E-bay, Alibaba, Google Shopping, besides all global brick & mortar retailers, use GS1 barcode numbers to unambiguously identify, authenticate, and list products on their portals. They also require accurate, updated and complete information on product attributes in a structured and standardised manner to enable shoppers to seamlessly access products across retailing channels and compare them across shopping portals.
GS1 India’s DataKart enables the above by allowing brand owners to upload and share information on their products with multiple retailers and online marketplaces at one go through a single data repository.
Currently, DataKart hosts information on over 7.5 million retailed products in India across product categories,which include food, FMCG, apparel, general merchandise, personal care, consumer electronics, home/kitchen appliances, etc.
It also enables sharing of information on existing products, new product launches, SKU deactivations, promotions, etc., in real time with multiple retailers and online marketplaces.
Since the information is directly populated by brand owners/manufacturers, it is trusted and reliable, which is valued by retailers, online marketplaces and shoppers at large.
Some small & medium enterprises greatly value the benefit that they receive out of DataKart;
- Carnivore is a start-up frozen meat manufacturer, she says that, DataKart has helped us upload complete product details including high-quality images, MRP, net weight, ingredients, etc., and reach to multiple retailers/etailers with the same.With DataKart Premium, our products become visible through Google search.
- Marwaha Agro Foods says, “Through DataKart, our products are now viewed by leading retailers like Metro Cash & Carry, Paytm, and many others.
- Equinox Overseas Private Limited, says, GS1 has helped my brand Equinox in numerous ways to reach to large number of audience worldwide by offering unique & universal identity to my products in the form of GTINs. The barcode numbers generated through the DataKart service has helped me list the company products with ease on local, global platforms and marketplaces, ensuring no duplication and brand security.
Corporate Comm India(CCI Newswire)
