Freedom.desi : A new entrant in Retail aggregation

The Indian retail industry has emerged as one of the most dynamic and fast-paced industries due to a continuous entry of new players. It accounts for over 10 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and around 8 per cent of the entire employment. Today, India is the world’s fifth-largest global destination in the retail space.

The main problem that plagued the industry was the dearth inmeans for offline retailer and products to be discovered by consumer. Therefore, brands started facing a discontinuity in communication with their retailers.As a result, there was a lack in clarity of information from the retailers’ to consumers. In a scenario like this, the best solution was to create a space/medium, enabling offline retail to connect with consumers andbrands through a cloud platform, hence discovery of a plethora of offers under one’s fingertips.

Freedom.desi began with the need to #BringBackRetail in competitive onlineworld, as we felt that offline retail needed to have tools, to connect with modern age shoppers.Founded in December 2015 by Yogesh Huja and Mahesh Khatik ,Freedom.Desi operates from Gurgaon entailing a workforce of 11, all of them being ex-founders.With its innovative solutions and proactive framework, the organisation has cemented its base as a business catalyst for a diversified set of retailers & brands.Freedom.Desi App enlists the help ofWi-Fi sensors to track the users in vicinity in a commercial space, log footfalls and can send out promotional offers to them. Our USP lies in connecting hyper local businesses, consumers and brands into one single retail platform.

Our market size is vast with 300 million smartphone users, 500 + malls, 2000 + markets, 1000 + brands and 20 million retailers to tap into.  For Malls & Retailers, Freedom.desi helps attain visibility, creates offers and discounts using Retailer App, broadcasts offers to valuable customers.Freedom.Desi enables consumers to discover malls and offline retailers in cohesion, explore offers, movies& events under a single platform and get indoor directions at malls. Brands can also benefit from this platform by getting a direct connect with retailers, flexibility to launch offers directly and gain important feedback between brands and retailers.

In addition, we offer assistance to shopping centres, aiding them in administration programming, while highlighting clients who have the application alongside, vast retail space in malls. Currently, they can look for wheelchairs; utilize the lost-and-found help, which form the focal points of interaction between the customer and administration.

Our main revenue scheme is based on a subscription model, which entails Offer & Promotion Management, Profile and Footfall Analytics using Wi-Fi Sensors, Shopper List Management using App & Cloud Panel. We also aid in advertising through delivering Geo-Targeted Advertisements and categorizing Specific User Interest Group.

Shopkickis one of our major international player to follow. It was initially funded by Kleiner Perkins' iFund, Greylock Partners, and Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn andFacebook investor. In October 2014, Shopkick was acquired by SK planet, the South Korea-based mobile and commerce leader. Other competitorin our category but with different offerings are MallMate, Mall A Mall, Shopsupand Urban Hub, have major tractions in the specific geography.

With over 30k Shopper App and 2500 Retailer App / Clouds downloaded within 4 months, Freedom.desi is moving at a breakneck speed. Close to 1k+ offers were created and 10k+ offers viewed.

In today’s ultra competitive world,we aim to be adominant player in providing information, navigation, engagement & payment options for shopping in malls of the world, with plans of expandingin Indonesia, Singapore,Dubai and Hong Kong market after India.

The real value of Freedom Desi is for every Mall , Market or Hypermart who invests millions on isolated Cloud & Mobile App Platform targeting to same auidience. We believe there is an utter need to build a social shopping platform where businesses & consumers come closers keeping the hierarchical chain informed at every stage.

We want to extend the base of the app by providing solutions to measure footfalls, integrate offers with Geo-location tracker and Queue management, which would ensure us to be at the top of the retail solutions table. Our desired capita would be 100 million USD in the next 3 years.

Yogesh Huja
Founder & MD, Freedom.Desi