Interview by Nisha Singh - KARMAPLACE.COM Founder & CEO- Sasha Revankar

A small interview round of Founder & CEO of KARMAPLACE.COM Sasha Revankar regarding her journey of karma place & what challenges she has faced while handling this business. End Quote

(1888PressRelease) August 22, 2020 - Having other successful businesses, what was your impetus for starting Karmaplace.com?
I travelled often to Mumbai for work, and I have always been in awe of the shopping experience in India. Everything from the vast selection, colors, textures and craftsmanship, it’s hard not to want to take everything back home with you. Often I would come back to the US and receive compliments on the random items I gathered on my trips, be it a bangle, purse or tunic. Similar items are sold at huge mark-ups by corporations internationally. I thought there should be an easy and affordable way to bridge the gap and give people around the world direct access to vendors in India – to get quality products for a reasonable price.

What is your vision for Karmaplace.com?
Our vision is and always has been to make quality products from India accessible to an international audience in a hassle-free and at affordable prices. We would like to be the online representation of the MAKE IN INDIA effort where vendors from all categories all over India can partake in reaching a global audience.

So you are saying you are not limited to a fashion website?
Definitely not, in fact in the early days ethnic fashion was not a category we wanted to start with since there were established players. We focused more on Jewelry, Ayurveda, Home Décor. But, naturally, the major demand was for ethnic fashion and as we tested the other website we found a huge scope for improvement in the quality of products being sold and the service. Seeing this opportunity, we changed our direction and introduced ethnic fashion as a major category. Who knows in the future you may find automotive parts, industrial supplies, all sorts of stuff on KarmaPlace. As long we are able to deliver a quality product and excellent service from India, we are game!

What so far has been the greatest struggle?
As with any business in a dynamic field, every day there are new struggles and challenges. I suppose the most distinct challenge I faced was our initial site launch taking place at the same time of the birth of my second child. At that time we had many struggles, including technical challenges, challenges building up credibility with vendors etc. With a 3 year old and a newborn, I really had to take a hard decision whether to take on the challenge and see my vision through or to put the project on the back burner. Obviously, my conscience won and I couldn’t say no to pursuing this vision. You could say it was one of those “defining moments”.

What is unique value added proposition for Karmaplace.com?
I would say a strong understanding of our products and customer expectation is a definite advantage and core of our business. Having roots in India as well as the USA gives us a thorough understanding of the quality of products and also of what customers abroad want.
For Example we can easily ask vendors to ship products directly to customers, in fact it would save us a few days in fulfillment, but because quality is so important to us, we insist each and every product be examined in our warehouse. The complete details of the products along with the actual product image/video are shared to every customer before we ship the products to them so them they are 100% sure with what they are going to get.

We also offer local returns in the USA – other companies offer “hassle free returns” but usually you need to ship those items back to India – who would want to do that, the cost online would be upwards of $40 just for shipping! So we offer local returns in the USA where the return shipping is FREE or a minimal cost like $3 - $5.

We are always evolving and adapting our strategy to improve the customer experience and our efficiencies. Recently we launched “Guaranteed Fit” for example. Guaranteed fit is a service that guarantees the proper fit of any garment on our website by the customer sharing a few key measurements. It’s a win-win kind of solution to the ever present “fit” issue for online retail fashion.

What about your Competitors – how are you different?
Frankly, we don’t want to focus on being better than competitors, our focus is on need of the hour, which is creating seamless user experience for cross border business. There is no one company we see as our direct competitor since we cover so many categories. We have an amazing team with a shared vision and our attention is on creating value for our vendors and customers, we do this by paying attention to our customers, not competitors.

What’s on the horizon for KarmaPlace for the next few years?
There’s a huge wish list if I had my way! But in all practicality there are a few priority things. First, this global pandemic has affected the world over and given us all a new perspective. Our business being cross-border and global we have been faced with several challenges from vendors in one country and customers in another. We would look to simplifying our supply chain so we can be more resilient and serve customers better in the long-run. Second, our focus has been a lot on Fashion, though we have a lot more to explore and expand in Fashion, we want to give some of the other categories India is known for some spotlight, like Jewelry, Ayurveda, & Home Goods. It’s a vast market on both sides of the ocean and we are just at the very tip of the iceberg in our venture!

Any words for budding entrepreneurs, especially female entrepreneurs?
Well, one piece of advice that you don’t get from school (even though I had the most amazing experience at one of the top business schools in the USA, MIT Sloan) is to dig deep for the courage and strength to make it through the tough times. Sometimes you are taught do this, this and you will get this outcome. It’s not always the case in starting a new venture. Many people will want to jump ship at the first sign of challenge or hardship. Self-doubt can fog your mind. Those that you hear about and those that succeed are the ones that have persevered despite the challenges. Follow your gut and stay true to it. This I learned from my father, being brought up in an entrepreneurial home. Keep your chin up and thoughts positive, just when you think you won’t make, you realize you’ve just started

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