You order a pack of coffee from a small coffee brand's own website, not from a big marketplace. The site remembers your address, offers cash on delivery, and asks if you want the same pack every month. Later, you get a link to track the parcel. All of this runs on software the brand bought, not software it built.
Industry Vertical 26, E-commerce and D2C brands, covered the places where people buy. This Industry Vertical covers the software that sellers buy to run them, and it begins with the online store. A brand that sells from its own website needs:
- a store builder, to make the website
- a checkout
- subscriptions, for repeat orders
- order tracking and returns
- search and recommendations
- more and more, an assistant that talks to the shopper
One coffee order, and the tools behind the brand's own store: the store builder, the app, search, the checkout, the subscription and order tracking, many of them apps that plug into a Shopify store, with the assistant arriving more and more.
Brands that sell from their own website like this are called direct-to-consumer brands, or D2C brands. (More on them in Market Segment 26.3, Direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands, in Industry Vertical 26, E-commerce and D2C brands.) Many of them build their store on Shopify, a platform that lets anyone set up an online store. Many of the tools here are apps that plug into a Shopify store. India's D2C brands created a market for these tools. Now a group of Indian companies sells them to Shopify stores around the world. The buyers range from small Indian sellers to large American retailers.
Every company named here has posted software engineering jobs in India. Famous companies that don't actively hire software engineers in India are left out.
This Market Segment has three sub-segments:
Building and running the storethe website, the app, the subscription and the parcel tracking.
The checkoutthe moment the shopper pays, or chooses to pay later.
Search, discovery and the assistanthelping the shopper find what to buy.
Building and running the store
E-commerce platforms, D2C website builders, mobile app builders, subscriptions, order tracking and returns, omnichannel retail
Take the coffee brand from the start of this Market Segment. It needs a website, perhaps an app, and a way to handle your monthly order.
Loop Subscriptionssells the subscription app for Shopify stores. It handles the repeat order, the page where the customer changes it, and a second try when a payment fails. It has engineers in Delhi, and the most job postings of any company covered mainly in this Market Segment.
ShopDeckbuilds websites for small Indian sellers who want to sell directly, with shipping and marketing built in.
Superfans.ioturns a Shopify store into a mobile app, with loyalty rewards and push notifications. It has engineers in Chennai.
ZopSmartsells retailers an e-commerce platform, with point of sale and order management. Point of sale is the billing counter in a physical shop. Order management tracks each order from payment to delivery. ZopSmart has engineers in Bengaluru. (More on point of sale in Market Segment 27.3, Retail checkout and store systems.)
Fyndis owned by Reliance, and its company name is Shopsense Retail Technologies. It sells omnichannel retail: one system for a retailer's orders and stock across its shops and the marketplaces it sells on. It has engineers in Mumbai. It also posts jobs as Fynd AI, with engineers in Bengaluru.
Narvarruns order tracking and returns for large American retailers: the page that shows where the parcel is, and the label that sends it back. It has engineers in Bengaluru. (More on delivering the parcel in Market Segment 30.5, Last-mile delivery and shipping software, in Industry Vertical 30, Supply chain and logistics.)
Ecbeewith engineers in Chennai, also works on building online stores.
Shopify itself, BigCommerce and Dukaan are not covered in this Market Segment.
The checkout
Checkout optimisation, cash-on-delivery risk, headless checkout
Back to the coffee order from the start of this Market Segment. At the checkout, you chose cash on delivery, as many Indian shoppers do. But some shoppers refuse the parcel when it arrives, and the seller pays for shipping it both ways. The industry calls a refused parcel an RTO, short for return to origin. It is a much bigger problem in India than in most countries.
A refused parcel, called an RTO or return to origin: a cash-on-delivery order is refused at the door and comes all the way back, so the seller pays for shipping both ways. GoKwik scores each such order for that risk before it is shipped.
Some checkouts are headless: they run separately from the store's own website, so a brand can add them to any store.
GoKwiksells the checkout of Indian D2C brands. It fills in the shopper's address and offers the payment options. Above all, it scores each cash-on-delivery order for the risk that it will be refused at the door. GoKwik has engineers in Bengaluru and Delhi.
shopflosells a faster checkout for the same stores. It has engineers in Bengaluru.
The payment itself, once the shopper pays online, is covered in Market Segment 17.2, Payment gateways (in Industry Vertical 17, Payments).
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Search, discovery and the assistant
Site search and recommendations, AI shopping assistants, shoppable video, product content, local shopping
Back to the coffee brand from the start of this Market Segment. Before you ordered, you searched its site for "strong filter coffee", and it suggested a grinder too. Search, recommendations and, now, AI assistants help a shopper find what to buy.
Netcore Unbxdsells site search and recommendations to online retailers. It has engineers in Bengaluru.
Glanceis owned by InMobi, the Indian advertising-technology company. Glance puts content on phone lock screens and televisions, and is building AI shopping into them. It has engineers in Bengaluru.
Flash AIis a shopping assistant. It compares prices across marketplaces and tracks orders.
Lookuplets shoppers chat with local stores.
ResultFlowsells personalisation: showing each shopper different products, based on what they have looked at before.
IceCream Labs and Glood.AIwork on product content, the descriptions and photos on a product page. IceCream Labs has engineers in Bengaluru, and Glood.AI in Delhi.
Algolia and Bloomreach are not covered in this Market Segment.
Three companies covered mainly in other Market Segments bring content to the product page:
Bazaarvoicebrings the reviews on product pages. It has engineers in Bengaluru. (More on it in Market Segment 15.5, Customer feedback and reputation management, in Industry Vertical 15, Customer service and CX.)
Whatmorebrings shoppable video: video from which a shopper can buy the product directly. (More on it in Market Segment 13.5, Creative tools, event platforms and creator marketing, in Industry Vertical 13, Martech.)
Minoanbrings the shoppable holiday rental, where guests can buy the furniture and products they used during their stay. (More on it in Market Segment 41.5, Coworking and co-living spaces, in Industry Vertical 41, Proptech.)
The store that talks back.
On an online store, the search box and the filters are giving way to an assistant. It answers the shopper's question, recommends products and completes the order. Beyond that come AI agents that shop across many stores on the customer's behalf. The companies here are building for both: the store's own assistant, and a store that an outside agent can read and buy from.
That is the software behind your coffee order. One set of tools built and ran the brand's store. The checkout judged the risk of your cash-on-delivery order. And search helped you find the coffee in the first place.