GlowRoad’s easy-to-use API is enabling popular apps to monetise e-commerce on their own platforms

How do apps with high footfall monetise? Monetisation is extremely important and India’s own content apps, vernacular apps and short video apps eventually have to make money. They do this through display advertisements, sponsored posts and affiliate marketing, among other options. The objective is to ensure that users get more personalised experiences and publishers drive revenue, so that they can keep creating interesting content.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more startups are struggling to raise funds and hence, are looking for opportunities to explore monetisation through e-commerce. However, that’s easier said than done as setting up an e-commerce system on your existing platform is tedious. You need to build a supply chain, find suppliers, connect with manufacturers, coordinate photo shoots, manage logistics, negotiate product prices, and the list goes on.

Social reselling platform GlowRoad is making this process easier with its deep tech offering, wherein any app or company can simply integrate the GlowRoad API with their platform, run an e-commerce shop and start generating revenue from Day 1.

Powering plug-and-play e-commerce for high-traffic Apps

Founded in 2017, GlowRoad is a social commerce platform that lets users resell products directly from manufacturers and suppliers through WhatsApp and other social media apps . GlowRoad handles the entire process from managing suppliers, payment, shipment, returns, etc, letting users just share and earn.

During the lockdown, GlowRoad partnered with top apps in India to help them explore monetisation on their platforms, as well as reach the audience in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. As GlowRoad already has a good reach in all corners of the country, they have built a supply that caters to this audience. Social apps and video apps such as TikTok can simply plug the GlowRoad API on their platform and start an e-commerce shop. This not only gives them a free monetisation tool, but eventually helps them increase their company's valuation.

“Deep tech integration based on Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence is important to match the content with relevant products from GlowRoad. This can jumpstart transactions from zero to hundreds of thousands per day for high-traffic apps. This is true blue “Supply as an API” offering from GlowRoad. No other company has this offering in India today,” says Nilesh Padariya, CTO and Co-founder at GlowRoad.

How the monetisation process works

At the centre of any e-commerce application is its supply. GlowRoad has a portfolio of 500,000 products in 300+ categories that are sourced directly from unique manufacturers, artisans and creators. The variety has been instrumental in making GlowRoad India's #1 social commerce app with around 14 million users.

Startups can easily integrate GlowRoad's state-of-the-art API on their existing website or app. Users of the app, while browsing the content, will see GlowRoad's product feed. If a product interests them, they can simply click the 'buy now' button and check out within the same app. The backend operations and product details are powered by GlowRoad, so that the order fulfilment part is taken care of. The app company need not worry about logistics and shipping.

When users buy a product, it comes with the company's branding. Also, when the inventory runs out of a particular product, the GlowRoad team is intimated in the backend and the product stops showing up in the company's feed.

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How startups benefit from the ready-made tool

Partnering with GlowRoad to start an e-commerce business on your own app translates to everything being served on a silver platter for you. Here are some of the top benefits that ensure you are generating revenue from the very first day:

• No investment needed for creating a separate ecommerce app or supply team
• One-step API integration to generate revenue for free
• Completely powered by AI and ML to showcase products based on the user journey
• Add your own commission, which gets deposited into your bank weekly
• Increase your company's gross merchandise value to get funding faster
• Access to 500,000 high-quality high-margin products
• No hassles like managing inventory, payment gateway and logistics

Enabling companies to turn users into profit

GlowRoad has partnered with companies like ShareChat, among others and is in conversation with 15 more firms in India and overseas to integrate the API on their apps.

GlowRoad platform has inbuilt video commerce, where other apps can integrate their API and start displaying videos of GlowRoad products and generate revenue.

"These are trying times and everyone is looking to generate revenue. We, at GlowRoad, are creating a tool so that any company can monetise through e-commerce, while we take care of inventory, logistics and everything else in between. We believe the possibilities are endless in this offering," says Nilesh.