Nepali E-commerce companies need changes of national policy – Aabhushan Jyoti Kansakar
While the inhabitants of Kathmandu valley remained disconcerted and immobilized due to the covid pandemic in 2020, a team led by a visionary entrepreneur was working long hours to cater to the pharmaceutical needs of the people. Soon after Aabhushan Jyoti Kansakar, the Founder/CEO at Jeevee, initiated the e-commerce platform in 2019, a lockdown was enforced owing to the covid pandemic. Interestingly, Jeevee’s mission of digitizing the health care industry came alive as a result. The company grew exponentially via its e-pharmacy service and later grew to become Nepal’s fastest-growing e-commerce with a niche in healthcare and personal care segments. In light of the company’s success, we at BrandGuff reached out to Mr. Aabhushan to shed light upon Jeevee’s journey and pivotal issues in the e-commerce industry of the country.
What is the story behind the brand Jeevee? How did you settle with the brand name and identity?
Jeevee was conceived with the idea to fill a void in the healthcare industry of Nepal. The country lacked any noticeable developments in the healthtech industry which Jeevee has aspired to revolutionize. Initially, our team brainstormed several names for the company. I wanted to devise a brand identity that represented healthcare while also not limiting its scope to just healthcare. Furthermore, I wanted the name to have a Nepali touch but also be in line with something that an international audience could connect to. Thus emerged the name Jeevee which corresponds to the Sanskrit word ‘Chiranjivi’ which means immortal. The first rendition of the name was Jivi but we had to settle with Jeevee to find and register a web domain.
Jeevee grew unprecedentedly during the lockdown period. How did Jeevee manage to work around the pandemic restrictions and grow in that period?
To begin with, we never tried to position Jeevee as a brand that offered pharmaceutical solutions at the during covid restrictions. We were rather focused on delivering the best experience to customers. Our strategy was focused on two major aspects: keeping our own inventory and an in-house logistics team. We managed to get approval to operate from CDO very soon after the lockdown was in effect. As such, we were the only e-pharmacy operating at that time. Our medicine prices were also very reasonable and this had a snowball effect as we started getting requests for diapers, other babycare and skincare products too. In hindsight, the pandemic did not pose much of a threat to our operations apart from the rapid increase in orders which was hard to cope with as recruitment was nearly impossible at that time.
Jeevee pioneered the trend of online doctor consultation in Nepal. How did this idea come about?
Firstly, I would like to state that we are not the disruptors of healthtech in Nepal. I like to think of ourselves as merely a proponent to drive the health industry into a digital platform. Jeevee began conceptualizing the online doctor consultation before the third lockdown in 2022. The reasoning behind it was pretty simple. Doctors were practically inaccessible at the time due to the lockdown and since they were also not going to hand out their contact numbers readily, online consultation seemed to be the right thing to do. The whole idea stemmed from the belief that the healthcare industry should not prioritize profit-making motives when the lives of people are at stake. So, we managed to develop a platform where people consult with doctors online and receive digital prescriptions as well.
When are we expecting Jeevee to tap into the rural population for online doctor consultation?
We are already doing medicine delivery in 110 cities. Online consultation is always there but we have not resorted to pervasive marketing strategies. Our ordeal is that we are a self-sustaining business and are not backed up by huge investments. Firstly, we are looking to establish a profit-making business in Kathmandu itself and then move on to other locations.
After Jeevee, big names like Hamro Patra (Hamro Doctor) have also dived into the healthtech industry. How is Jeevee differentiating itself?
When it comes to the e-commerce industry, I believe that the point of differentiation will be customer experience. Companies have to build a better understanding of how the customer journey unfolds. Ultimately, it is also based on your company’s mission and vision. Differentiated products can be developed by any company but it more or less comes down to how companies can deliver a brand experience to customers. In all honesty, Jeevee also does not boast that it has the best customer experience. We have had our shortcomings but we aspire to improve them continuously.
Jeevee recently opted to rebrand at a time when a number of other companies were doing so. What is the reason behind the rebranding?
There were several companies at that time that chose to rebrand which almost made it seem like a trend. However, our decision to rebrand was motivated by an entirely different factor. While we had been providing healthcare services via our platform, later developments enabled us to expand to baby and beauty care services as well. The previous logo did not seem to resonate with our expansion of operations. So, the new logo embodied Jeevee’s renewed focus on health, beauty and baby care segments, along with a V that resembles a tick mark signifying the authenticity of our products.
What has been the strategy of Jeevee to keep retain customers and keep them engaged?
We have always aspired to provide the best customer experience which has helped us to retain customers. Apart from that, we also hand out periodic marketing offers to customers like the 99 campaign where products are listed at prices ending in the digit 99 at a discounted rate. Moreover, the authenticity of our products is what keeps our customers engaged and retained which can be seen in our reviews as well. As such we have been able to maintain a customer retention rate of over 65% which is considered to be very high in the e-commerce industry. Generally, e-commerce companies have a retention rate below 20%.
The E-commerce industry of Nepal is marked by one stiff competition in Nepal, Daraz and its foreign-backed technology and investment. Do you think Nepali startup ventures need protectionist policies to compete?
Yes, certainly there have to be initiatives from the government to nurture the nascent yet handicapped domestic e-commerce ventures just like we have reservations for scheduled castes and gender. In fact, the current state of government policy is working to the disadvantage of domestic companies. If we are to proceed with Facebook ads legally, Nepalese companies need to pay around 1 and a half times more after accounting for TDS and other payment fees. While this burden of tax is supposed to be borne by Facebook, the government is imposing this tax on Nepalese companies. As a result, the cost of customer acquisition via Facebook ads increases significantly. On the contrary, companies like Daraz can easily reduce this cost by making Facebook ad payments through international channels. Moreover, Daraz is also backed up by huge investments and the modern machine learning technology of Alibaba which virtually eliminates any chance of competition from the handicapped Nepalese companies. Therefore, I believe that the government must enforce some level of protectionist policy to nurture domestic companies and make them able to compete in the market.
E-commerce platforms face one major issue that dissuades customers from associating with them i.e. Reverse logistics. How is Jeevee tackling this?
Daraz aside, the e-commerce sector of Nepal is still in its budding stage. The e-commerce companies have not been able to build all-encompassing platforms that account for procurement logistics, production logistics, sales logistics, reverse logistics and various others. Jeevee, since its establishment, has aspired to build a full-fledged e-commerce system. However, we have realized that reverse logistics is a cost that e-commerce platforms have to bear to ensure that customers are retained and the industry grows. Reverse logistics is a part of the e-commerce industry that cannot be dealt with easily.
