CXOToday participated in an exclusive interview with Mr. Sandeep Chhetri, CEO, TradeIndia.com
- When and why was TradeIndia established? What was the objective in starting TradeIndia and what was the strategy adopted to reach the 6 cr+ MSMEs in India today?
Launched in 1996, TradeIndia.com began as an online reference service for the global export-import community. It is widely used to search for manufacturers, exporters, suppliers worldwide. In its journey of more than 33 years, it has evolved a lot. With over 80,000+ product categories and over 120 million inquiries every year, it is known as India’s leading B2B e-commerce portal, connecting buyers and sellers globally.
At TradeIndia.com, we have digitally transformed over 10 million SMEs and are working with a vision to make 63 million SMEs digitally empowered. Every day we work to simplify the process for our buyers and sellers.
- Please give us an overview of the challenges TradeIndia faced initially and how you overcame them?
The first and most important challenge was to get the businesses online. There was a lack of awareness about digital platforms. Business was worried. Online penetration was low as decision makers in MSMEs those days were not internet savvy. In addition, many SMEs operated from small towns where internet connectivity was a challenge.
As a strategy, TradeIndia first started by sending inquiries by fax. We contacted each business associated with us during the call and answered their inquiries manually. Our service teams visited customers to understand their individual business needs and educated them on the importance of digitization in today’s century. We extended all the necessary support, from creating their email IDs to helping them understand to how to use email as a communication channel, etc. It was an excellent collaboration between us and the business and hats off to those business people who are heading out to embrace the new concept of such a positive business online.
- What is TradeIndia’s growth year-on-year in the last 3 years? Can you indicate the growth according to the top 5 business categories?
User registrations have grown from 5 million to 10 million in the past three years. It has also seen a 41% jump in inquiries over the past three years. Agriculture, Chemicals, Industrial Supplies, Hospital & Medical Supplies, and Electronics & Electrical Supplies are some of the best performing categories.
- What is TI Lending? Tell us more about this proposal and what it solves?
TI Lending is an exclusive digital lending solution initiative from TradeIndia.com, India’s largest B2B e-commerce portal. TI has partnered with leading lending platforms like ICICI Bank, Flexiloans, EFL, Moneywide, Arthmate, IIFL, Faircent to offer seamless lending to its customers. TI Lending, India’s first digital SME lending solution, has announced the disbursement of loans totaling over INR 500 million to MSMEs and SMEs in the country within six months of its launch.
Launched in July 2022, this offering is a fully digitized solution with zero documentation. It offers instant business loans up to 50 lakh within a disbursement time of 24 hours. In just 6 months since its launch, it has received over 50 thousand loan applications from SMEs and SMEs.
TI Lending aims to solve the financial requirements of businesses by:
- Providing loans to SMEs for their business capital so that they can grow their business smoothly.
- It offers a complete end-to-end digital loan processing journey and aims to disburse a loan within 4 hours.
- Serving underserved SMEs using alternative data.
5. Can you share more data and information about the type of loans disbursed through TI lending?
Various loan offers from tradeindia lending:
- Business loan
Our core offering is business loans offered up to Rs. 50 lac can also exceed depending on the business requirements. The repayment period of a term loan is finalized by the lender at the time of loan application.
- Subscription fee financing
When a user buys a paid subscription to TradeIndia, he/she can choose an option to cover this amount up to zero interest emi through credit from TI.
- Overdraft
Overdraft is a type of financing offered by tradeindia through its lenders where a customer can withdraw cash from their account even if the account balance is zero.
- Personal loan
A personal loan can be used to take care of your individual needs. Interest rates on personal loans are usually higher than secured loans.
- Supply Chain Financing
Supply chain financing provides a lower cost of capital to keep supply chain costs under control, optimizing working capital for both buyer and supplier.