- Acquisition to significantly expand market opportunity for Unicommerce
- Complementary range of solutions to enhance Unicommerce’s full-stack offering for e-commerce technology needs
- Acquisition to expand the Unicommerce product portfolio to include solutions for courier aggregation, shipping automation & AI-enabled marketing automation
- 6,500+ brands, retailers, logistics companies, and marketplaces will have access to the expanded suite of technology solutions
- “Integrated, one-stop offering will be transformative for e-commerce businesses”: Unicommerce MD & CEO Kapil Makhija
Bangalore – 12 November 2024: Leading E-commerce enablement SaaS platform, Unicommerce announced the acquisition of Shipway, a Gurugram-based e-commerce technology platform. In the first tranche of the deal, Unicommerce is acquiring 42.76% stake in Shipway for a cash consideration of Rs 68.4 Crores. Unicommerce will acquire the balance stake in Shipway within one year by way of a merger or stock swap through an issue of equity shares to complete a 100% stake acquisition.
The acquisition will expand Unicommerce’s product suite to include solutions for courier aggregation, shipping automation and returns reduction. The acquisition will also enable Unicommerce to offer an integrated marketing platform with AI-enabled, automated solutions that allow brands and retailers to target buyers with personalised, segmented and wide-reach marketing campaigns to increase conversions. With this, Unicommerce will offer technology solutions that cover the entire e-commerce journey, including pre-purchase and other post-purchase segments.
Unicommerce’s current product suite is focused on providing technology solutions for e-commerce warehousing & order management, allowing businesses to efficiently manage inventory across multiple locations, minimise fulfilment costs, process orders for multiple online and offline channels, manage returns, and generate invoices, among other mission-critical tasks. Unicommerce also offers technology solutions that allow businesses to track shipments and reconcile order payments from various sales channels.
The complementary range of solutions offered by Shipway will now allow Unicommerce to offer courier aggregation and shipping automation solutions to its customers. The integrated nature of the offering will enable a seamless handover from order processing to shipment and beyond. In addition, the product suite will offer tools to reduce returns, a vital efficiency criterion for online businesses.
In another significant expansion of its capabilities, Unicommerce will now offer solutions in the pre-purchase part of the e-commerce journey before a customer orders. Shipway’s “ConvertWay” solution will allow brands and retailers to deploy SMS and WhatsApp marketing tools with AI-enabled features, pre-purchase and post-purchase chatbots, and other support tools for enhanced customer engagement.
As part of the acquisition, the Shipway team will continue to grow the Shipway and ConvertWay businesses.
Commenting on the acquisition, Mr. Kapil Makhija, MD & CEO of Unicommerce eSolutions Limited, said, “We are delighted to welcome Shipway to the Unicommerce family. Over the years, Shipway has built a strong and well-recognised business, serving its customers’ needs with immense focus and clarity. Our collective product suite of software solutions from Unicommerce and Shipway will be transformative, offering an unparalleled, one-stop, seamless solution to simplify e-commerce for businesses in India, including and beyond our 6500+ customers.”
Endorsing this significant partnership, Shipway co-founders Gaurav Gupta and Vikas Garg added, “We are delighted to announce the acquisition of Shipway by Unicommerce. Unicommerce has built a dynamic technology ecosystem and a robust, profitable, fast-growing business. Together, our products will be able to comprehensively serve the growing technology needs of e-commerce businesses.”
“We look forward to working alongside an integrated Shipway and Unicommerce team to build and grow technology products that delight users and empower businesses by simplifying e-commerce”, they added
The acquisition is expected to lead to a significant expansion of market opportunity for Unicommerce, enabling it to provide its existing technology solutions to nearly 3000 global and Indian clients of Shipway, which include brands like Durex, Lenskart, Juicy Chemistry, Tresmode, Dot & Key, Amante, Libas, Sleepy Owl, Sennheiser and many more. The nearly 3550+ clients of Unicommerce will also benefit from an expanded offering, including Shipway’s suite of software solutions. The combined customer pool of 6500+ e-commerce businesses and the 260+ technology and partner integrations by Unicommerce will allow the unified software suite to become a seamless part of the e-commerce supply chain & technology stack used by businesses in India.
Unicommerce is India’s leading e-commerce enablement SaaS platform, which is publicly listed on the NSE and BSE. With a 930 Mn+ annual transaction run rate, 3550+ clients, 8800+ client warehouses and 3150+ client stores, Unicommerce works with India’s marquee brands, leading marketplaces, and logistics service providers to technologically enable end-to-end management of their e-commerce operations. Beyond India, Unicommerce also serves clients in the Middle East & Southeast Asia.
Established in 2015, Shipway is a Gurugram-based e-commerce technology platform that offers software solutions for the pre-purchase and post-purchase journeys of e-commerce. It provides “Shipway,” an automated shipping solution software that algorithmically enables optimal courier allocation. It also offers “ConvertWay,” an automated marketing technology platform that allows brands to target their customers efficiently using AI-enabled tools.
