Big Idea

Online shops can up their game with real-time shopping assistants

SaleAssist.ai, based in Gurugram, helps e-commerce sites add this personalisation feature, through text, audio and video chats 

Even if it is for an eyeshadow or a perfume, navigating a well-stocked cosmetics store isn’t easy. Then, a salesperson, who knows a lot more about skin types and formulation of the products, becomes a godsend. But can an online shop offer a customer a similar experience? That is, can it provide them with a helpful guide real-time? Yes, says SaleAssist.ai, which sets up live video-calling along with screen sharing and co-browsing facilities for e-commerce platforms. The start-up’s solution even makes possible group shopping experiences, by allowing multiple people to log in to the same conversation.

For example, together and with live assistance, friends can even book a ‘safe-cation’ and buy everything needed for it.

The Gurugram-based company, founded by Deep Malik, Ashish Nanotkar and Chetan Jangir in February 2020, offers a subscription-based SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) platform. It has a per-agent, per-month pricing model for  Rs.499 and  Rs.999, depending on the features needed and the full package can be bought for  Rs.6000 per month.

While capitalising on the online shopping boom, SaleAssist.ai is focusing on seven segments which include luxury fashion, jewelry, real estate, furniture, home decor, student travel, and financial instruments such as home loans and insurance sales. Besides this, their key execution strategy is to capture 2% of the market. Malik explains, “There may be 800,000 stores, but we just need 16,000 of these to achieve our revenue target.” The start-up so far has raised funding of  Rs.30 million from investors such as 100X.VC and Malik says that they expect to raise  Rs.1 billion by the end of FY22.

SalesAssist.ai is starting out in India and using the feedback to refine their product for international markets. The team plans to expand to Dubai and Singapore within the next six months, and then to the USA and Canada. In the global market, their biggest competitor would be Vidyard in Canada, according to Malik, but SalesAssist.ai believes it has an advantage with its live-communication service over Vidyard that supports only recorded messages. “With our pricing and features, we will give them a tough competition when we enter the western market,” he says.

There is a huge untapped opportunity that SalesAssist.ai is reaching for, according to Malik. “Sales worth $750 billion is lost annually, just because there is no engagement and there is no personalisation experience. We can easily set that right,” he says.