MILTON SIKDER, founder and CEO of facilityindia.com, said the 360° Market Search and Market Place e-commerce is going to be started Pan India operations shortly.

Final beta testing of the e-commerce is going on. The platform has about 27 categories, out of which 11 are product categories and 16 are services categories. 

MILTON SIDKER, CDCS, CEM, an engineering graduate with MBA in Finance, who’s a guest speaker at the Retail Business Meet in Kharghar, told FN (Facilityindia News)  in an interview that he sees no  competition from home-grown companies like Indiamart, Justdial, TradeIndia, Shopclues, Bigbasket, Practo, Zomato, Urban clap, Housejoy, Olx, Quikr etc. in the digital market search and market place. He feels there is enough room for everyone to grow in emerging market like India. 

What is facilityindia and its uniqueness?

Facilityindia is a 360° Market Search e-commerce platform (like Indiamart, Just Dial, Trade India, Sulekha etc.). It is also a Market Place for products (like ShopClues, Flipkart, Amazon, Tolexo, Industrybuying etc.) e-commerce platform. It is also a Market Place for services (like Zomato, 99acres, practo, urban clap etc.) e-commerce platform.

It will be the largest and widest e-commerce in India for its wide ranges and functionalities.

Facilityindia having several competitive advantages over others –  

1. Offer search for both Product and  Services,

2. Market Place for both Products and Services,

3. Fees e-Pay facility for students,

4. E-Pay facilities for user of small hotels, lodges, hostels etc.,

5.100% payment protection on buy and sell,

6. Free Medical treatment info,

7. Trade wise News,

8. Trade wise Blogs,

9. Utility bill pay,

10. Dedicated wallets,

11. Free job listing,

12. Free community services,

13. Donation facilities for needy,

14. Localised 360° e-market place,

15. Dedicated seller catalogue and so on.    

Youth, unemployed, housewife, retired person can start a business in one day at facilityindia and with almost no investment or little investment. This is a huge business potential and opportunities to rural and urban people on India.   

Facilityindia targeting 300+ crore revenue in next 24 months and 500% growth YoY. How these numbers has been driven? 

If you look at our business model and what we offer, we will do something that is incredibly differentiated and relevant compared with anything else on the market or with those who have come before us. We offer complete facilities to an individual or organisation for its daily needs. We want clients to get most of their requirements to be full filled at one search, not 27 different websites to check with. Our tag line is one country, one market.

What is your focus area on various categories?

We are focusing to all segments but key focus area on Agriculture, Clean Energy, Education, Grocery, Hotels & Restaurants, Retails, Real Estate segments for sizable revenue.

Farmers can display all their products, sell their stock directly to anyone across country with 100% payment protection and  same for clean energy, Students can pay all their fees digitally, Hotels can display individual room tariff and get booked on line, Grocery and retails also have 100% payment protection and all other segments as well. Retailers or Sellers directly will deliver product to buyer. We advise sellers to use platform’s FiPay instead of cash mode delivery which have lot of unseen hassles on service perspective and lack of documental proof.

How you see growth prospects of FacilityIndia?  

We’re just really focusing on providing unique, local, and easy to do business, 100% payment protection in business transaction to micro, small, medium and retail segments will be first time in India. We’re really reshaping how people think about search, buy, and do business with financial risks with unknown threats and uncertainty.

We are covering all 700 districts and  5000+ Taluka gradually. We are discussing with governments to spread awareness to use our platform by MSMEs, farmers and retailers. Our platform offers Taluka base mapping and pan India base mapping as well. Target to generate 01 crore revenue per Taluka per year and may grow further over period of time.

There are good revenue prospects from farmers as there is a huge supply-demand gap in India due to various reasons. As we are encouraging local business for e-marketing, digital transaction. We can effectively counter large e-commerce companies who do cross country product sale that involves huge transport, insurance and logistics costs.

How employment generation by facilityindia may help to curb unemployment in India?

Facility India looking for 15000+ employment opportunities in 05 years. Facilityindia assuring at least 03 employment guarantees from each Taluka. Our employment model will be mostly work from hometown and flexi timing.

What are the revenues head?

Facilityindia is offering free listing to all till March 31, 2020. Premium listing revenue, Ad revenue, Support revenue, Database selling, Buy leads revenue, Transaction revenues are main heads of our revenue model.

We want all MSME who don’t have LC (Letter of Credit) facility for day to day business, can transact through “FiPay” to have LC equivalent instrument for transaction. Payment realisation in 04 working days for sellers. There are 100% payment protections for buyer as well. Facilityindia’s expects clients from all segments like B2B, B2C, C2C and  F2C.  

Who are competitors in e-commerce space and how you will counter them? 

We don’t focus on the competition very much. They each have very different business models. I think facilities is a big space and there’s room for multiple players but I think if you look at what we do, it is very different from what indiamart, just dial, Oyo, Snap deal, Bigbasket does or anyone else do. I think we each have our own approach to the market, and we each will have a loyal following, and a sizable following. 

As India is an emerging market and there is huge growth potential. We find lot of players are still to be accommodated for the need of large people and many businesses.

In Agriculture, we have lesser competitions. There are Kisaantrade, Agroinfomart,  enam, agriculture1 etc operating in this segment. But we facilityindia, is best and decisive. Simple and easy to do business transaction and search.

In Clean Energy segment, we have almost no competitions. There are few product base traders, OEM are operating in this segment using ready availed e-commerce on single vendor platform. But Clean Energy segment,  facilityindia is best, wide range and decisive purchase from hundreds of vendors. Simple, assured pay protection  and easy to do transaction.

In Consumer electronics, Retails, Grocery, we have tough competitions. There are established companies like Amazon, Flipkart,  Pepperfry, Snapdeal, Bigbasket, etc operating in this segment. But Consumer electronics, Retails, Grocery segments at facilityindia are best and decisive for fast requirements. It is designed for local retailers for quick delivery. As it is must demand of people after payment done, how fast he can get the product. Our lead time expected 30-180 minutes for major delivery after payment done successfully.

Where would you like to see Facility India after 10 years? 

There are new business opportunities for business mainly in farming and retails in emerging market like india and other growing nations. India will have unstoppable growth for next 20 years. We see a major growth potential for facilityindia. We are working for business potential countries like Bangladesh, Thailand and Indonesia etc. in future.     

Do you plan to go public this year? 

This is obviously something I’m not going to comment on, except what we’ve already said, which is that we’re technically able to do it whenever we choose. There is a window of time where this is more likely. 

How do you view the new form of e-commerce business starts up? 

It’s part of the natural progress, where you do something new that doesn’t fit within the norms that previously existed. And then, as that thing scales, this question has to be addressed. I think our general approach has been to partner with local governments, local trader body, farmer body, corporate for encouraging their dealers into e-commerce as proactively as possible. And I think we will be done that effectively over period of time. 

Innovative Student payment model in education, home sharing, direct from restaurant, farmer to consumer, business 24x7 will help us to stay afloat for long run.  

We cordially welcome Govt’s decision on new e-commerce policy. We are complying 100% govt policy for e-commerce and will do so. We offer 99.99% uptime for e-commerce platform. We are working hard to make FacilityIN a global brand. 

You are a Qualified Chartered Engineer and served India’s top companies. What drives you to start this large mega scale e-commerce? 

I think we’ve been very logical, methodical and we’ve stuck to our roots of what makes us different as we have grown. We’ve been careful to not compromise on our vision of what facility should be. And we think facility has the potential to transform how you think about the requirement, search and other people, product and services. We really think it’s about connection between people and giving them local authentic live experiences.

To grow and explore new opportunities, we need to bring those ingredients into this space. You often have to reinvent, innovate and do something different. With the Experiences product and services, that’s what we did. That requires a great deal of patience, because you have to experiment a little bit for success. And then, once you come up with this very different type of solution, you have to explain it to the entire world. On day one, people say what is this, why should I book/buy this? We are looking for the best people for authentic service.

It’s something that we have been doing very methodically but I’d say also taking our time. In other words, we haven’t let growth be our primary motivation. We take our time to do something that’s different and do it right. And then we take on another thing. We are doing research and solution innovations.

Starting off, facilityindia was perceived as a company which offered 360° product and service solution. How are you looking at positioning the company going forward? 

We really think Facilityindia can be useful for all, in fact every one. And we have started to focus on all specific segments and customise the Product & Services for those segments right, so we have our offering for all types of customers. We have a high-end luxury offering as well. Companies have signed up to do business directly with facilityindia, which is very promising. 

It’s also very important for continued growth with the domestic market because so much of that market is there untapped by anyone. But yeh, the inherent strength of facilityindia is that there’s so much diversity of product and services that you can naturally just find something regardless of what your requirements are. That being said, we’ve tried to formalise it so that there’re clear business platform that can be mapped to traditional segments as well as corporate segments as well. 

Thanks a lot for being a well wisher of facilityindia.