THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Imagine you walk into a store, apart from the shopaholics and people who generally find nirvana in just spending time inside a shop, most of us generally find it a time-consuming and tedious affair trying out various outfits and the possible accessories that could go along with it.
Also, remember the endless times when you were left with no one to assist you at a store and found yourself in a pickle or felt you weren’t given the attention due for a customer?
Those are woes of the past. Now here is something to make your shopping days better and easier. Shopesense, a Mumbai-based retail tech start-up, the brainchild of a Malayali youth Sreeraman M G from the city and his friends Farooq Adam and Harsh Shah, is all set to revamp the shopping experience both for the customers and the retailers and brands.
Being the topper of his classes did not keep Sreeraman away from the usual activities. He was very much the spirited teen interested in sports and had his set of friends that he liked to hang around with. Just because he was the smart kid around the block he was not the one you would call the geeky type with no interest in anything other than his academics. In fact there were plenty of other things than academics unknown to his friends that kept Sreeraman M G busy when he was not trying to crack a math problem. What kept this young lad busy in his free time was designing.
“My craze for designing started really young. I used to freelance even when I was in school and towards the fag end of plus two I even designed the brand identity for an Australian company FoodCube,” says the 27-year-old.
Soon after a degree in civil engineering he was recruited by a topmost IT firm. But when Sreeraman realized that he was not being offered the job of a designer as they had promised he quit the firm and joined PaGaLGuY.com an online education portal in Mumbai. In the meantime, Sreeraman had also begun to design T-shirts under the brand MGeez.
After 2 years with PaGaLGuy he went on to do a Masters course in designing at IIT Bombay. And it was while he was here that he met his co-founders through an online forum and the trio came together to start Shopsense.
About their product Sreeraman says, “Shopsense Match is a product that promises to give you a whole new shopping experience.”
Built on large touchscreens, Shopsense Match lets customers browse through products, search new collection and curate their own designs. All this while inside the shop, thus giving you the ease of an online shopping experience but at the same time letting you see and feel the product. Thus this product helps in making your shopping experience easier and less time consuming.
“With just a few taps on the touchscreen, customers can explore the entire collection available at the store. You can then mix and match different looks and see how different shirts go along with the pants they like and vice versa. Not only is the product easy to use it also has a variety of options to explore.”
“If suppose an item is not available in that particular store Match gives you information regarding the nearest store the item you chose might be available. Suppose you want the opinion of a friend you even have the option of mailing the sample to your friend,” adds the design head.
Currently Shopsense Match is installed in many stores across Chandigarh, Bombay, Delhi and Bangalore. In Kerala this product is currently available in the Being Human store at Lulu Mall, Kochi.
“The stores catering to Being Human, Lee and Satya Paul are the ones that currently feature our product. In the future we are also looking to extend it to US Polo, Flying Machine and the like,” he says.
Asked about the popularity of their product among the Malayali customers Sreeraman says, “We are getting very good feedback from the customers as well as the retailer in Kochi.”
Apart from Shopsense Match the company also has two other products that are being developed, one is the Shopsense React and the other is the Shopsense Explore.
“Again Shopsense React is a product similar to the Match and this is mainly going to be introduced in footwear retail shops. The device has a touch screen and a pressure mat to scan your feet. Once the device scans your feet it then displays all the shoes that are available in your foot size and dimensions. It can also suggest the right kind of shoe that would be apt for you depending on your foot size, pressure, dimension and the like.”
Remember the endless times you were almost lost in a supermarket with its never-ending aisles? Here is where Shopsense Explore comes to your rescue. It is simply a mobile app which anyone can download. This app will assist you in navigating through the endless aisles of a supermarket. This app tells you where exactly you can find what you are looking for in a super market.
About future plans Sreeraman says, “Our immediate aim is to deploy these two products in the market. The company also aims to extend the product to nearly 82 stores across the country by the end of the year. One device per store is our target.”