Zepo

Zepo is an Indian eCommerce software company that lets small businesses and independent entrepreneurs create and operate their own online stores. The platform provides a fully functional eCommerce website that a merchant can set up in a few minutes, with design customization intended to match the merchant's brand.

Beyond storefront creation, Zepo assembles the surrounding operational stack for its merchants: it provides an Indian payment gateway at no cost so store owners can accept credit and debit card payments, and it has a partnership with Bluedart covering logistics. The company positions eCommerce as a sales channel for retailers, small manufacturers and brands — an additional order-taking medium — rather than as an aggregator marketplace model of the kind operated by larger Indian players.

Zepo Technologies Private Limited is headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, and was founded in 2011 by Nitin Purswani. It maintains a YouTube channel under the handle zepostores.

Founding story

Founder Nitin Purswani came from a commerce academic background and describes himself as a non-technical product builder. After graduating he ran a t-shirt manufacturing business selling Marathi slogan t-shirts to retailers and wholesalers in Pune, Nashik and Mumbai, then attempted a web startup called Bijness.in that failed. Zepo was his third entrepreneurial attempt, conceived with a college friend and motivated by a preference for building something of his own over corporate employment or further study.

Business model

Zepo sells a subscription-style hosted eCommerce platform to small businesses, bundling storefront software with an ecosystem of services — an Indian payment gateway offered free to merchants and a logistics tie-up with Bluedart — so that merchants can transact without assembling those components themselves. The founder cited simplicity of the platform, customer service and pricing as the three factors on which the company sought to compete.

Paid subscriptions to the eCommerce platform, with trial sign-ups converting to paid accounts; the company reported roughly 200 paid users alongside about 1,600 trial sign-ups in its early period.

Traction

In an early interview the company reported approximately 200 paid users and about 1,600 trial sign-ups, achieved without PR, advertising or digital marketing spend, and a team of 12. Later company data lists 11 employees, two funding rounds totalling roughly $501.17K with the last on 2 August 2017, ₹0.0 revenue in FY23 versus ₹3.0 Lakh in FY22, and about 1.02K monthly web visits.

Latest developments

Company data records a last funding round dated 2 August 2017 and total funding of approximately $501.17K across two rounds. Reported revenue was ₹0.0 in FY23, down from ₹3.0 Lakh in FY22, with an employee count of 11 and a Glassdoor rating of 2.80 from 63 reviews.