GogoPogo, a social commerce startup founded by Assam Engineering College & IIM Shillong alumnus, launches “Bidexot Apun” – An Assam-themed merchandise collection for the Global Assamese diasporas across the world.
This collection is the first in the series of “Colours of India” edition that aims to provide online merchandise collections themed on 75 Indian towns, cities & states. All the collections are to be released before the 15th of August 2021, in collaboration with visual artists, content creators & social influencers across the country to mark India’s 75th Independence Day. These collections would have an Indian storefront to cater to the domestic audience as well as a global storefront to cater to the diasporas, where the orders are shipped from the host continents (currently, available only for North America)
India is a diverse country with numerous spoken languages, tribes, ethnic groups spread across various districts, cities, towns & villages. Furthermore, each of these demographics, be it languages, tribes, or towns, has its own heritage and stories. The “Colours of India” plans to launch a series of hyperlocal-themed merchandise representing the various geographies.
The Founder, Mr. Maharnav Gogoi, says “GogoPogo’s vision is in sync with the concept of Digital India and an Atmanirbhar Bharat. Any artist, graphic designer, author, the content creator can start an ecommerce business, with a series of themed products from apparels, accessories & home decor categories without any investment or even without any physical inventory. On the other hand, an aspiring entrepreneur can collaborate with an artist and can come up with a joint venture online store. They can further collaborate with social media influencers relevant to their niches to promote their products. When a product gets sold, each of them earns their pre-decided margin which can be tracked on their individual dashboard.”
GogoPogo is a social commerce cum collaborative platform that enables visual artists, social influencers, content creators, resellers, and entrepreneurs to launch solo or joint online merchandise storefronts catering to every niche audience. For every purchase, the royalty earned gets split as per their pre-decided terms among the artist and the seller/reseller.
All the back-end hassles of running an e-commerce business such as – stocking of products, inventory management, order management, handling customer queries, refunds and replacement hassles, packaging, shipping and logistics are being taken care of by GogoPogo team and its associated vendors. This leaves the artists & influencers with only one core focus area that they do the best – i.e. creating unique designs and promoting the products.
GogoPogo enables artists to launch their online storefronts by just uploading their artworks or designs, which gets converted to a full-fledged storefront with 100+ SKUs. They can further collaborate with influencers & resellers to boost their sales.
Similarly, GogoPogo helps social influencers to launch their fan merchandise stores on a solo mode or in collaboration with independent artists. Influencers endorse products for other brands, and now they can launch their own niche themed merchandise labels to cater to their audiences & thereby build an additional revenue stream with their existing influence.
GogoPogo has a unique feature called “Campaigns”, which enables artists to conduct a quick litmus test of their designs/artworks to assess the market response of their creation. “Campaign” allows artists to start with just 1 design and receive a mini collection page with around 10+ different sets of products such as T-shirts, Tote Bags, Sippers, Coffee Mugs, Sweatshirts, Laptop Sleeves etc. Each Campaign has a sales goal of 10 Units to be accomplished within 7 Days. Once the campaign is successful, the artist gets a dedicated online storefront wherein he/she can feature more designs on the product range. Artists who make a campaign successful within 48 hours are eligible for a global storefront in which orders from North America, Canada, Europe, Australia etc are dispatched from the respective countries (Currently, in the Public-beta phase, international orders are dispatched only from the United States). Furthermore, not only the artists & the influencers but also the non-profit organisations can make use of this feature to raise funds towards a cause by running fundraising campaigns.
The startup has completed its private (beta) phase which started amidst the lockdown, during which the team conducted numerous product-market fit tests across different markets with various sets of partners. The startup aims to fill a major gap in the current social e-commerce ecosystem in the country by providing “Regional & Hyperlocal” themed merchandise. This unique yet highly efficient platform will provide customers, artists and influencers with their dream forum.
Founder of the startup, Mr. Maharnav Gogoi is an Electrical Engineer from Assam Engineering College & an alumnus of PGPEx IIM Shillong. A serial entrepreneur & a renowned Quiz Master who hosted numerous quiz shows across the country at reputed institutes such as IIT Kharagpur, IIM Shillong, AEC, NIT Silchar etc. Mr. Gogoi has been into the customised merchandise industry for 7+ years. Some of the prior ventures which he founded/co-founded include – Assam Lingo, Q-factor knowledge solutions, Poptales, Eshopany etc.
To know more, visit www.gogopogo.in ,
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Written by: Rashmi Rekha Sarmah