Context: Unicommerce has seen immense success in India and now plans to launch across other geographies. UAE is one of the P0 markets for Unicommerce outside of India. UAE market offers a lot of ease for launching D2C commerce for brands globally, due to the presence of the Dubai Free Zone. Furthermore, taxation is almost zero for businesses, growing E-commerce adoption among users and high disposable incomes has made it easy for businesses to get quick acceptance.

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Litmus Test for Unicommerce UAE

Pricing​

Broadly, Unicommerce UAE has 2 kinds of accounts:

Enterprise accounts with annual billings of ~15K+ USD with Unicommerce. These are brands/customers who use Unicommerce as their key WMS for their entire business and not just for their E-commerce channel. Eg: Landmark Group (Centerpoint), Maersk Logistics, etc.

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SMB Accounts with annual billings of ~10K-15K USD with Unicommerce. These are brands/customers who use Unicommerce only as their primary WMS for their E-commerce Channel (D2C Site, Amazon, Noon & Namshi). Eg: Lenskart, Healthkart, VIP Bags, etc.

60% of the company's revenue comes from SMB Accounts and 40% from Enterprise Clients, bringing the Average contact value to ~14.4K USD. They currently have ~30 SMBs and ~20 Enterprises in UAE.

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Value Proposition

Products like Shipsy and Swftbox while provide a Warehouse Managing System, they come as a package for brands along with the compulsion of using their 3PL logistics (warehousing and last mile delivery). This poses a problem for brands who's growth depends on volume (which is most D2C brands). Furthermore, Shipsy and Swiftbox don't offer secure supply chains for brands with high AOV products (Eg: Mobile phones, Jewellery, etc.)

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Vinculum is a like to like competitor for Unicommerce but doesn't have integrations with key marketplaces like Noon, Namashi in UAE. Furthermore, they also don't have key integrations with UAE based 3PL Logistics players like Aramex UAE, FedEx UAE, etc.

Key Value Proposition of Unicommerce in the UAE includes:

1. Seamless integration with key UAE marketplaces (noon, namshi, amazon UAE & others).
2. Flexibility to choose 3PL warehousing and logistics partners.
3. Integration with ERP systems for large enterprises.
4. Training Support for E-commerce on ground staff
5. Quick and efficient integration process to go live.

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Sales Process

For Enterprises, the sales funnel is as follows:

→ 40 Leads Per Year
→ 30 Demos Per Year (75% CVR from Lead To Demo)

→ 20 Signed Up Accounts Per Year (66% CVR from Demo to Signed up)

→ Average Account Value: 20K USD/year
→ Annual Revenue: 400K USD+
→ Time to Convert an Account: 4 Months

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For SMBs, the sales funnel is as follows:

→ 170 Leads Per Year
→ 90 Demos Per Year (52% CVR for Lead To Demo)

→ 60 Signed Accounts Per Year (67% CVR for Demo to Sign Up)

→ Average Account Value: 12K USD/year
→ Annual Revenue: 700K USD+
→ Time to Convert an Account: 2 Months

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Objective for Unicommerce

Broadly, with the given status quo Unicommerce UAE is doing 1 Million USD. The costs of setting up for the tech team and the tech infra, will pretty much be fixed for 80 Clients or 400 Clients. Profitability is a concern. Costs alone amounting to ~1.2 Million USD (people, infra, biz. ops)

If they are able to inorganically acquire 100 new clients with an average contract value of ~13K USD, they will be able to make the UAE operation profitable.

If we focus on SMBs, to get 100 new clients, we need to back calculate (basis Conversion %ages from current Sales Funnel shared above):

→ 100 New Signed up Clients
→ 150 Demos (Given 67% CVR for Demo to Sign up)
→ ~290 Leads (Given 52% CVR for Lead To Demo)

→ Assuming Prospect Outreach of Event to Prospect Event Attendance will be at 80% (best Case); We will need almost 362 Propsects
→ Assuming Prospect Outreach of Event to Prospect Event Attendance will be at 60% (average Case); We will need almost ~485 Propsects from the SMB cohorts

Now what's the stage in the funnel are the potential customers are?

→ Are they Problem unaware ?
No, their current customers aren't problem unaware. Most of the (Enterprises & SMBs) both are using WMS solutions but face problems in scaling up due to the limitations of their current WMS solutions


→ Are they Solution unaware ?

For Enterprises: UAE warhousing firms who own large warehouses (Eg: https://www.alsharqi.co/ ) are helping brands from Europe, USA, India etc. launch their brands in UAE but don't have adequate WMS solutions. Their existing WMS solutions don't have Webhooks, open APIs and ready integrations which can connect with ERP solutions of these global brands or with 3rd Party Marketplaces. This drastically increases the time and effort for the E-commerce KAMs to reconcile and for stock amangement.

For SMBs: These folks are currently leasing Warehouses in UAE and using a simple OMS like Shopify/Magento etc. to run their e-commerce websites and manually listing inventory across Amazon, Noon and Namshi. They face huge reconciliation challenges on Returns, calculating sell throughs of specific lots, and managing last mile customer delivery experience.

For both these kind of accounts, Solution Awareness is a challenge. Unicommerce needs to showcase it's features and the ease of use to Enterprises and SMBs. So across, Dicover/Engage/Grow, the Event focus should be on Discovery (80%) and Engagement (20%).

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IAP for Unicommerce

For the Unicommerce event we will focus only on SMB clients, for Enterprise account growth Partnership integrations via PLG will be a better bet. We have identified 2 primary IAPs for Unicommerce.

1) IAP Cohort Name: Marketplace Champions
These brands and/or sellers are the top sellers across Marketplaces
Eg: Rivoli Group, Sephora, Lattafa Perfumes, etc.

Problem Statement:
1) Brands and Sellers rely on costly Marketplace delivery services (e.g., FBA for Amazon, FBN by Noon), which disrupt supply planning during events like Cyber Monday.
2) They also want to start their native D2C channel via Shopify/Magento etc. but don't know how fulfilment will work

Solution: Brands & Sellers seek a cheaper 3PL for Mid and Last Mile fulfilment, reducing costs to ~3% of GMV (vs ~8% of GMV with FBA/FBN). However, coordination challenges due to the absence of an end-to-end WMS hinder their transition.

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→ Buyer: E-commerce lead/head or Head of Modern Trade (some cases E-com, is a subset of Modern Trade Teams) / Brand Heads
→ User: Supply Lead, Key Account Managers (part of the E-commerce teams)

→ Organisation Identifiers: Top brands on Noon, Namashi across high volume categories (Apparel, Watches, Eyewear, Audio Devices, Smart Devices, etc.)

🎯 Goal For this IAP: Make their E-commerce operation more profitable

2) IAP Cohort Name: Indian Explorers

These brands, well-established in India, have a strong following among the vast Indian community in the UAE, driving nearly ₹100 Crore in business. They're now poised to double their presence in the UAE.
Eg: Titan, Aditya Birla Group, Himalaya (ayurveda), ITC, Nykaa, Sugar Cosmetics. etc.

Solution: Unicommerce can provide implementation support with their 3PL partners and help them go live and test E-commerce channels quicker.

→ Buyer: Country Head for these brands
→ User: E-commerce Channel lead

→ Organisation Identifiers: Indian brands that have UAE Free Zone Trade licenses and have an export FOB value of ~30 Cr+

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🎯 Goal For this IAP: Testing out various E-commerce channels fast

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Event Structure

for our selected IAPs, these are the topics that will excite them:

Since the problem is of Solution Awareness, we will use the modus operandi of Masterclasses to work with them.

Partner Selection:

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For IAP Cohort: Marketplace Champions, we will have a series of 3 Masterclasses with the following partners and speakers:

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For our IAP Cohort of Indian Explorer Brands, we will have the following Masterclasses:

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Why will These Speakers Agree to speak?

→ Distribution: This Masterclass series will offer these Speakers a direct link with their customers
→ Social Capital: This will also up the visibility among key SMBs & CXOs of these SMBs

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Tool for Master Class: 1) Airmeet 2) Landing Pages.io 3) Mailchimp for E-mail Reminder

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Outreach Format: We will use 2 formats 1) Social Outreach 2) Direct Outreach

Social Outreach:
→ We will use micro influencers on Linkedin/Twitter to advocate our Event
→ Happy customers of Unicommerce UAE will be leveraged for this (Eg: Current Nykaa GCC head). This will be a critical lever for us. We will even go as far as offering them a 1K AED Gift Card for Amazon for posting this.
→ We will give them free invites and also offer 10 of their followers free access into the speaker session
→ They will post such sample messages on Linkedin/Twitter:

For Social Outreach, this will be the outreach flow:

For direct outreach, we will have a CSO driven outreach:

→ We will write an invitation mail to the Biz. Head/CSO of Indian brands that have obtained Trading licenses in UAE

→ The invite will allow them and 4 other members from their team to get exclusive access to the Masterclass series.

This flow of events will be as follows:

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Event Flow

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→ Post Sign up on the Landing page, attendees will select the mastercalsses they want to attend

→ They will get a brief write up on the Masterclasses & the speaker they signed up for

→ 7 Days prior to the Masterclass, attendees will get a form to ask the questions they'd want the speaker to answer during the talk.

→ Post every successful Masterclass, they will unlock exclusive rewards from the partner brands. Eg: 1. Month Shopify Plus trial free, 2000 AED Amazon Ads Credit, 2000 AED Noon Ads Credit, etc.

→ 3 Lucky Attendees who complete all Masterclasses get a Free Sky Diving Sessions

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Key Metrics: We need to hit the below success metrics to declare if this event was a success or not.

1. Total Prospect Outreach: 468
2. Total New Leads Generated > 100;
3. Leads to Demo CVR > 52%
4. Demo to Sign ups > 67%