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We live in a time when groceries can be delivered to our doorstep within 10-15 minutes, thanks to the hyperlocal solutions offered by the likes of Zepto and Blinkit. Similarly, food delivery apps like Swiggy and Zomato get us freshly-cooked food in under an hour. However, when it comes to delivery of non-perishable products, most ecommerce or D2C brands take up to 3-4 working days. 

For instance, Amazon Prime delivery takes 24-48 hours, and most of the products don’t fall under the Prime subscription and take longer to deliver. Myntra, too, has a two-day express delivery, but it is limited to only a few brands and in a handful of cities.

Akshay Gulati and Bipin Singh recognised this gap and decided to start Siksti in June 2023 to bring ecommerce delivery time at par with Zepto and Swiggy. The Bengaluru-based company offers a hyperlocal omnichannel ecommerce platform for beauty, personal care, and fashion products with an aim to deliver products in less than 60 minutes. 

“We are a 100% omnichannel aggregator brand and don’t hold any inventory or dark stores but tap into the brand’s existing stores and dark stores,” Gulati, CEO & Co-founder, Siksti tells YourStory.

The company has more than 300 brands available on its platform, including Lakme, L’Oreal, Colorbar, Maybelline, Jimmy Choo, Plum, Minimalist, Olay, Sun Scoop, etc, and represented by retailers such as NewU, Beauty and Beyond, etc.

The beginning

Gulati and Singh worked at retail tech SaaS venture Perpule to deliver POS and omnichannel solutions to large format retailers like Big Bazaar, Spencers, More, 24seven, etc. When it got acquired by Amazon in 2021, they started working very closely with the omnichannel team at the ecommerce giant and noticed a positive trend of customers demanding faster delivery in fashion, beauty and personal care space. 

“While building POS/omnichannel solutions for different brands at Perpule and working at Amazon India, we realised that the capability of large ecommerce platforms and independent brand websites is to deliver fashion and beauty products in more than four days, which is not what customer experience is heading towards,” states Gulati. He says the barrier to quicker delivery lies in warehouse limitations.

“The only solution was to tap into the network of offline stores and be 100% omnichannel to deliver faster,” he explains.

The entrepreneurs moved out of Amazon in early 2023 and used their network of connections with some large format retailers for supply to launch the startup.

Since its launch last month, the startup claims to have witnessed 30% repeat buy and positive contribution margin. Akshay says the company crossed 100 orders within a week of its launch.

Faster delivery

Siksti’s app is live on Google Play Store and Apple App Store, with 10,000 downloads and a 4-star rating. It features nearly 300 brands operating in the beauty and personal care space in Bengaluru and gives visibility to more than 15,000 unique SKUs.

“We have integrated with multiple retailers on their backend with their ERP and POS systems to get live sync of inventory and store level promotions. We then showcase that to customers within a defined radius of 15 kilometres. As soon as a customer places an order on our app, our rider picks it up from the store in less than 10 minutes and delivers it to the customer’s doorstep within 60 minutes,” Akshay explains.

To carry out deliveries, the startup has partnered with third-party services such as Dunzo, Shadowfax, and Porter. Siksti prides in being an asset light company with no inventory.

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Siksti app screenshot

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The ecommerce platform doesn’t offer a cash on delivery option and offers cancellation only till a delivery executive is assigned. Like other D2C brands and retail tech platforms, returns are applicable on certain terms and conditions.

However, as Siksti scales, the founders say they will consider keeping inventory for online-only D2C brands. 

Market opportunities and business model

According to an IMARC report, the India beauty and personal care market size reached $26.3 billion in 2022. Looking forward, IMARC Group expects the market to reach $38.0 billion by 2028, exhibiting a growth rate (CAGR) of 6.45% during 2023-2028.

The startup charges 20-25% commission from its partner store for collaborating with Siksti. It doesn’t have a subscription model on offer.

 “We charge a flat Rs 25 as delivery fee from our customers and all our customers have not showed any resistance to that, and there is no drop offs due to delivery fee,” Akshay explains.

Currently bootstrapped, the startup competes with ecommerce marketplaces including Amazon, Nykaa, and Myntra, and differentiates itself from its competitors by delivering the same SKUs in less than 60 minutes.

Speaking of future plans, Akshay adds, “For the next three years we plan to focus on scaling to Tier-I cities with organised retailers. Post that, we aim to focus on local sellers.”