BOONBOX

Boonbox is the eCommerce venture of Inthree Access Services. BoonBox is

pioneering penetration of organized retail in rural India through its assisted e-commerce
model. Boonbox’s primary business is to source and sell almost everything from consumer
durables to FMCG to the rural customer. Boonbox’s primary business is to source and sell
almost everything from consumer durables to FMCG to the rural customer.

Overview of Boonbox
Boonbox is the eCommerce venture of Inthree Access Services. BoonBox is pioneering
penetration of organized retail in rural India through its assisted e-commerce model. Chennai-
based Boonbox is a logistics startup that is focussing on consumers living in towns and
villages with a population of 30,000 and below, and is also reaching those who live in
locations without a proper address or pincode.
Today, the tradition of shopping in Tier II and Tier III cities in India is slowly changing.
Rural India is spending more time online, thanks to affordable smartphones and cheap data
plans. But on-ground realities and challenges narrate a different story, making it tough for
marketplaces and sellers to deliver to and engage with customers in semi-urban and rural
India. This led 41-year old Karthik Natarajan to come up with the idea of Boonbox. Karthik
joined hands with Narayanan H and his former colleague from TVS Group, Ramachandran
Ramanathan (Ram), and started Boonbox in 2013. An ecommerce venture of Inthree Access
Services Pvt Ltd., Boonbox is a last-mile logistics network that delivers products to
consumers in remote areas at theirdoorstep.
Since inception in 2011, Boonbox has sold products in rural markets totalling to Rs 450
crore, and the team expects the turnover to be in excess of Rs 300 crore during the current
financial year.

Capturing the rural markets:

According to Ramanthan about 850 million consumers inhabit these villages, which is
about 70 percent of Indian population. These villages are spread over 3.2 million square
kilometres and around 10 per cent of these villages have a population of over 5,000 and about
55 per cent have a population of 500 people or less. Rural market is typically one of those
dark unchartered territory of India, where factors like last mile reach, poor connectivity, etc.,
forces marketers to choose urban and metro areas. So, they opted for the rural area where a
large white space was perceived and they knew it will give us the opportunity to develop the
business model that’s unique and we were confident that it offered us a no competition area.
They started with selling solar lamps to rural consumers but they also designed and
formulated consulting marketing strategies for marquee clients like Nokia, Samsung, Heinz,
Godrej and other popular FMCG brands. They started offering rural project implementation
services, such as designing and implementing projects that help corporate customers and
institutions reach their products and services to their target audience in the rural and bottom
of the pyramid customer space. These clients then urged them to get into selling in the same
rural markets that they were analysing. Between 2008 and 2009, the consulting experience
taught them to venture directly into catering the B2B vertical.

How does Boonbox works:

Boonbox is e-commerce platform that is multilingual and easy to access by the rural
community. Boonbox’s portal has both B2B and B2C elements built into them. In the B2B
segment, Boonbox’s sales team reaches out to the retailers in rural areas. The retailers have
direct tie-ups with manufacturers to buy and sell products to rural customers. Boonbox books
orders based on the retailers’ need. Boonbox agents then collect the cash and supplies
products through its hub and spoke logistics arm.
 In the B2C model, which was recently improvised in 2015, Inthree has identified
influencers at Panchayat level in villages and has appointed these as Boonbox Associates.
They are given an android tablet with Boonbox app. The app is an e-catalogue where in
coordination with the suppliers, the product and inventory details are directly integrated
through an API. The Boonbox Associates show the app-based e-catalogue loaded in the tablet
to consumers and book orders in the app, collects cash and transfers them to Inthree.
Boonbox’s sales team periodically meets the rural retailers to take orders, collect the money
and delivers the list of products they want at their doorsteps in case of B2C and at the
retailers shop in B2B.

The primary business at Boonbox is to source and sell almost everything from
consumer durables to FMCG to the rural customer. Most of these villages do not have any
last mile connectivity and each village cluster is unique. So, based on the geography and
existing network Inthree has set up a hub and spoke logistics network to reach out to these
villages. Through this network Inthree delivers the products to the end consumer. To provide
after sales support Inthree has set up multilingual call centers. In case of any issues
consumers contact these call centers either directly or through Boonbox Associates. Call
centers in turn coordinate with the respective suppliers to sort these out.

A unique feature of the mobile app is that it can work as well as process orders even
in areas without Internet network but one has to be a Boonbox associate to place an order.
Boonbox sells only the products of its partners. Any manufacturer or wholesaler with a good
product portfolio needs to enroll as a partner with Boonbox. After evaluation Boonbox will
add their products in its portal and start selling. Boonbox has created its own hub-and-spoke
logistics network to deliver products directly at the doorsteps of the rural consumers as many
of the villages lack proper transport and connectivity.

Business Model of Boonbox

Boonbox takes orders from rural customers and delivers products to their households.
Considering that the rural market has a broken ecosystem and a virtually non-existent
distribution network, this venture gets both the distributor and retailer's margins which makes
Boonbox's Unit Economics very strong.

Funding for Boonbox

Boonbox has raised a total of ₹250M in funding over 3 rounds. Their latest funding was
raised on Oct 15, 2019 from a Venture - Series Unknown round. Boonbox is funded by 4
investors. IAN Fund and Orios Venture Partners are the most recent investors.
1. IAN Fund
2. Orios Venture Partner
3. VenturEast
4. Keiretsu Forum

USP of Boonbox
Boonbox is a unique venture that aggregates the demand of rural customers and
fulfills them by placing an order with the merchant. In simple words, it's a vehicle to
enter the rural markets. The main idea of the startup is to be a desired brand for every
rural household and be a part of their everyday lives. Also, Boonbox is of the
ideology that every rural customer craves and deserves a top-class customer
experience.

Boonbox - User Acquisition:

 Rural India is characterized by a huge trust deficit. Boonbox has sold products to 2.5
million customers to date. Their focus is mainly on customer experience and to ensure that
every single customer complaint is addressed on time and they now have 2.5 million happy
customers. The rural market works on word of mouth marketing and Boonbox is a formidable
brand now. Hence the key strategy for Boonbox has been to focus on customer experience
since the initial days.

Challenges:

Rural is a white space, the founders had no benchmarks to follow. The company's
business model was formulated after multiple iterations and is not more than three years old.
The model is based on continuous learning and building on the co-founders experiences.
Also, It is not something that others can replicate over a short period. Boonbox is consistently
working towards solving two major challenges:

 Gaining the trust of consumers living in towns and villages with a population of
30,000 and below
 Catering to customers who live in locations without a proper address or pin code. In
such areas, it's important to ensure that products reach customers on time.

This venture is the pioneer in this field and the co-founders are continuously trying their
experiments and learning from them. There have been as many failed experiments as
successful ones, as the business itself is one huge hack!

Boonbox - Growth

Boonbox operates in 16 States. This includes acquiring customers and delivering products to
3, 00,000 villages which accounts for 47% of India's universe of villages. Since inception and
till date, Boonbox has sold products in rural markets totalling to Rs.450 Crores

Boonbox is the largest rural partner for Samsung mobiles and has been the largest partner for
them for the last three consecutive years. Some of the other products and brands include:

 Consumer durable: Samsung, Panasonic, LG, Whirlpool

  Kitchen appliances: Prestige, Preethi, Premier, Jaipan, Hawkins, Butterfly

Future Plans

The co-founders are expecting to close 2019 with a turnover of Rs.300 Crores, and with a
Gross Profit of Rs.75 Crores. They are expecting to reach a turnover of Rs.1,000 Crores by
2022.

The long-term plan of the venture is to be a pan India player, providing products at
customer's doorstep in remote villages and that too backed by top-notch customer
experience. Given that the following are the goals for the coming decade:

 Become a multi-service offering for the rural consumer

 Building a robust direct channel for selling to the consumer with a fintech offering
 Adding categories like FMCG, fashion, apparel to the product mix in addition to
mobile phones, consumer durables, kitchen appliances, and cookware
 Designing subscription models that can be relevant for the rural consumer
 Creating loyalty and membership programs to build long term value for customers

There's ideally nothing better than growing together. Boonbox's initiative of empowering
rural India with the services that they deserve is a marvelous concept. After all, great
businesses are always built out of satisfying needs rather than creating wants.

Boonbox and COVID-19

Boonbox on April 7 announced that it is repurposing its organization to serve rural India in its
fight against COVID-19. Boonbox said it will collaborate with state and central
governments, development financial institutions, corporate foundations and trusts to ensure
there is a continuous supply of essential services across these regions.

"Over 70 per cent of India lives across rural towns and villages, which means there are
around 138 million households in this region. It is extremely important to ensure that there
are sufficient relief measures undertaken to ensure that families gain access to at least the
minimum basic essentials required during these tough times," Ramachandran Ramanathan,
CEO and Founder of Boonbox, said in a statement.
According to the company, it has the capabilities to deliver products across 16 states in the
country. Through the "Mission Lifeline Bharat" programme, Boonbox will ensure a
continuous supply of medicines, FMCG goods (baby food, milk powder, biscuits, etc),
sanitation products (sanitary napkins, disinfectants, diapers, gloves, masks, etc) and basic
home groceries (Rice, wheat, pulses, sugar, salt, etc).