Ace Turtle to foray into online FMCG, electronics retail

E-commerce solution provider Ace Turtle, which enables brick-and-mortar-brands to sell online, is expanding into fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and electronics retail, as it looks to hit a gross merchandise value (GMV) of ?1,000 crore by the end of 2018, a top company executive told Mint in an interview.

Founded in 2013 by Berry Singh and Nitin Chabra, Ace Turtle is a technology-focused platform that offers a full stack of an e-commerce operation from listing, payments, customer relationship management (CRM), and logistics to offline retail brands.

Most of Ace Turtle’s customers are lifestyle and apparel brands such as Max, Puma, Fossil, US Polo, and Ray Ban among others. The company has 40 such retail brands on its platform and is planning to double the count by end of FY19, Berry Singh, chief operating officer of Ace Turtle said in an emailed response.

“As we scale up, we have identified three segments as our core target, which are primarily fashion, consumer electronics and FMCG. In fact, after fashion or apparel, consumer electronics is the second largest addressable market for us,” said Singh. He added that Ace Turtle is in talks with multiple leading brands in FMCG and electronics.

Currently, more than 80% of Ace Turtle’s portfolio brands come from fashion and lifestyle. However, the company believes that a sizeable business could come from FMCG and electronics brands, which is also promising for hyper-local delivery companies such as BigBasket, Grofers, DailyNinja, and Milkbasket among others.

Mint reported in June that online grocery start-up BigBasket is planning to launch a new private label for beauty products; it is also looking to enter micro deliveries by offering a milk and eggs subscription service.

Ace Turtle does not own any inventory; it instead facilities brick-and-mortar brands by helping them manage and list their product inventory across e-commerce platforms and online websites. It does this by managing and distributing the entire stock keeping unit of a brand.

Right from order processing to last-mile delivery, Ace Turtle offer the full stack e-commerce operation. It has partnered with 10 logistics provider for deliveries, and also provides payments support to brands.

An offline brand usually has multiple stores spread across geographies, and across warehouses. Ace Turtle sets up digital kiosks inside offline stores, which aggregates the entire catalogue of products owned by the brand.

Using the digital kiosk, customers walking into stores can place an order, even if they don’t fit a right fit, range, or color. Ace Turtle has been testing the product with Max stores since December 2017.

The company also has an array of tech products built using artificial intelligence and machine learning. It recently launched an AI platform for its brands, which helps retailers to keep up with fluctuating demand and supply.

Ace Turtle also has operations in Singapore. “We have just gone live in Malaysia, and we look to consolidate our presence in other regions in SE Asia, including Indonesia and the Philippines, and also in the GCC region by the end of this year,” Singh said.