I hadn’t heard of online shopping in Nagaland before ilandlo.com. The very enterprising duo, Lipokjungla Ozukum and Imtisunp Longchar have steadily worked at their home grown business and now it has become a household name as more and more entrepreneurs have learned to use their services with very satisfactory consequences. As ilandlo.com says it so succinctly, our business is to grow your business. My personal experience has been very good at ilandlo where they supplied books to remote places in the Northeast as well as dispatched overseas orders.
Whether you want to buy things or sell things, this is our very own version of Amazon.com. Dimapurians even get the privilege of CAD, house deliveries with cash on delivery offers. Support it. Vouch for it. It is worth it. How does anyone make an online shopping enterprise work in Nagaland with all its technological limitations?Let’s hear it first hand from the people who are behind this enterprise which is a godsend to any entrepreneur trying to reach a market within Nagaland and beyond.
An interview by Easterine Kire
1. What are the products you sell? Can you give a comprehensive list?
Ilandlo: We have categorized our products in a very generic way for any visitor or customer to understand and browse easily. Our categories include “Clothing and Accessories” where we have men’s and women’s clothing and accessories, and this category includes a special category for ethnic accessories, Ethnic Women and Ethnic men sub categories, where we currently have mostly Naga men and women shawls, stoles, wraparounds and jewelry.
“Home and lifestyle” caters to handicrafts of wood and bamboo, decorative mugs, household items, toys, art works and paintings, organic herbal soaps and showpieces.
Under “Food and Gourmet” we have lots of pickles both veg and non-veg, like pork, beef, fish, prawn, chili, fruit and bamboo shoot pickles. We also have vegetables, and delicacies like fermented soyabean, bamboo shoot, and various dried vegetables and fruits.
The “Books & Stationeries” sections have a variety of educational books for colleges and schools, for all the three streams of studies, and we have a huge collective shelf of books written by our talented Naga authors.
“Business Supplies” category mainly caters to the packaging of needful items for small and medium enterprises, which help them in getting packaging materials at a very reduced rate as well as at a very low minimum quantity (MoQ).
“Gadgets and Accessories” is a new line of product that will bridge the gap to bring in gadgets at a very competitive reduced rate from vendors from different parts of the country.
2. Are there some problems with selling bottled goods?
Ilandlo: Bottled packaging looks really standard and it always stands out on the shelf, and over the years of experience with different vendors we have seen that it has really done the trick to attract customers to buy their product. There are some problem areas in bottled goods, for instance, bottles are much heavier than the actual weight of the product, and there is a high risk of breaking, and it also takes the majority of the weight for shipping which also needs a lot of care. In addition, the product would be travelling for days, changing many hands. However, we do not refrain ourselves from selling bottled goods on our website from any seller.
Ilandlo: We designed the website model in such a way that any genuine individual, manufacturer, SHGs, small businesses, groups, craftsmen or handloom enterprise can sell their products on our website with total control over pricing, display, packaging and stock by themselves. It’s a platform where the sellers have control over what they want to display for customers to see. Our main role is to host the website and act as a customer and technical support provider for the sellers and the buyers. Thus, we don’t have any limitations on selling any product on our website except the ones that are illegal and the ones that need proper licensing to sell, like pharmaceutical products, arms, and liquor.
Ilandlo: We are very fortunate to have been able to deliver products from the small and medium businesses to the cities all over India. We have covered almost all the states in India, delivering products to Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Orissa in the south up till Himachal, Delhi, Haryana and Uttarakhand in the north and from far west Gujarat, Rajasthan, Mumbai and Goa till Arunachal, Manipur, Meghalaya, Assam and Tripura in the neighborstates. It’s been a spectacular response over the service that we are able to provide with our small team and with the little acquired knowledge and understanding doing e-commerce business so far.
Ilandlo: The start of the website came as a blessed one. Our first International order came in the first six months of launching the website. A customer from Canada, contacted us saying that she wanted to purchase from our website. We are still grateful for her trust and store it as one of our most valuable customer experience; that she trusted us blindly in transacting her Dollars in a bank account, in a small town, in a small state in Nagaland just over the internet, that was the power of internet technology. We did receive orders afterward from the US and Spain which we delivered and it reached them within two consecutive months this year, and we are in the process of fulfilling orders from UK and Singapore as well.
Ilandlo: We were skeptical about delivering goods to districts in Nagaland, particularly the interiors, because of the transportation system and the courier services which were not up to the standard for an ecommerce service. However, we chose Speed post as an alternative and now we are able to deliver all parts of Nagaland where speed post can reach. They are doing a good job so far. We run after their lives, if there is any delay in service or mishandling of parcels.
Ilandlo: There are lots of them, starting from basics like electricity, transportation, resources, office space etc. The list could go on, but all these problems are opportunities where we can find possibilities and make them work. We realize that complaining does not help us, but if we can find ways to solve those issues, we can build more opportunities out of those problems. Everyday we face different ways of challenges to make people understand what we are doing and to make them believe in us. We want people to understand that our idea is created to benefit the small and medium size business, and the farmers in the village, where they would get the maximum benefit of their hard work. Having said that, we would not have been doing what are we doing today, if there wasn’t any problem to face in people understanding our idea.
Ilandlo: We are always looking forward to meeting people who would want to work with us in expansion, funding and creating opportunities in and around the state or outside. We are open to ideas and directions that anyone among us can bring for expansion. We like crazy ideas and young minds pouring out opinions, logics, beauty and values, who can show us areas of improvement, show us our shortcomings and teach us what we don’t know or even would like to be a part of ilandlo’s team for improvement and expansions.
Ilandlo: Yes, but only to those who are extremely passionate about what they do, who are crazy yet very connected to their roots and want to help the society, who would still not take payment for years, yet pay their staff for their expenses, but who would work to take nothing less than success. Because it’s a long journey, where one has to be very strong emotionally and mentally because your close ones might lose faith in you and stop believing in you. It’s not a lucrative business where you would earn more than you spend. It’s more of a strategic business and one should have a clear logic and understanding of e-commerce industries. There are many other e-commerce business or ideas not necessarily retailing goods B2B (Business to Business) or B2C (Business to Customer), there are services e-commerce industries as well where one can bring out a spectacular idea to sell online.
Ilandlo: It’s a dream, but we still have a very long way to go. We have a lot of hard work to be done, and we need the right people to work with us, who believe in our dreams and ideas. We still have endless nights to go without sleep and work on building a platform for the people, because we want to scale up our local businesses and be the strongest pillar to support them. We have not even touched the tip of the iceberg, we are still in the vapor state, yet to be become a drop of liquid. Talking about Nagaland online shopping, we are still learning ABCs, we have a very long way of before we sit for the IAS exams.
Ilandlo: Our Business is to grow your business. We are focused on helping small and medium businesses, designers, authors, publishers, artist, craftsmen, handlooms to grow using technology, because ilandlo.com is built for the community to be able to support their business and do business freely and be able to link with buyers and sellers. It is a platform where we share data information about small businesses and give them access to the local and international markets. Products which have never been sold outside the state will get an export opportunity. We are focused on small businesses, groups and entities giving them a free platform, a free service where they can grow their business and start exporting.
