• The acquisition will strengthen Cashify’s e-Commerce offering
• UniShop will be rebranded as PhoneShop and will continue to help mobile retailers across India
• Hitashi Garg, founder – UniShop, Ankit Kushwaha, CTO- Unishop & rest of the team will now be a part of Cashify

India : Cashify, India’s leading re-commerce marketplace has acquired UniShop, an omnichannel retail solution platform that enables businesses to open a full-fledged online store.  The collaboration will help Cashify to further diversify its e-commerce offerings by empowering mobile retailers to get a web presence, build their brand and make more money to compete with e-commerce giants. The new service line will be rebranded as PhoneShop.

UniShop has helped more than 3 Lac small merchants in taking their businesses online, through its omnichannel suite it provides retailers with solutions for management, clienteling, multiple billing modes, stock management, online store development, custom domain, marketing, multiple payment options, personalized promotions, and more. Cashify on the other hand is a re-commerce market-place, which offers an online platform to sell old, or used electronic gadgets – primarily smartphones, followed by laptops, tablets, desktops and Gaming Consoles. Moving towards aggressive offline retail expansion post COVID-19, the company has opened 60 offline stores till now across Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru and in tier 2 cities like Patna, Kanpur and Ranchi and further plans to grow to 150 over the next one and one-and-a-half year.

Passion Connect played a crucial role in this acquisition. Led by Sanam Rawal, Passion Connect implements innovative hiring techniques to find the perfect employee-employer fit for their portfolio startups. A structured and dedicated Acquisition and Acquihiring vertical, led by Swati Gupta, is one such technique.

When Passion Connect introduced Cashify to Unishop, both companies realized that the next wave of e-commerce in India will be driven by millions of small merchants and this acquisition will help them capitalize on this growing opportunity with robust offerings. A recent report by NRF, Covid-19 epidemic has created a paradigm shift in consumer behaviour. 9 in 10 consumers have changed their traditional shopping habits. More than 50% of consumers have ordered products online that they would normally purchase at the store. In short, the Covid-19 outbreak has marked a tipping point for the adoption of ecommerce and mobile commerce platforms and has clearly favoured omnichannel retailers when it comes to minimization of the negative impacts.

Talking about the development, Nakul Kumar, COO & Co-Founder, Cashify, said, “The opportunity to take small businesses online is the next big e-commerce wave. A seller today should have an online presence to attract the customers for convenience and better reach. The collaboration resonates well with Cashify’s commitment of democratizing technology as well as growing strategically in the e-commerce space. Further, we see this as an extension of our team and are excited to have Unishop as a partner, as they have a great understanding of the market and retailers’ needs, especially in a Covid world where retailers must go digital to reach the highest potential. With UniShop’s tech team and our acumen, we are sure that this product will bring direct-to-customer internet channels to neighbourhood shops and services to not just survive in this pandemic but see it as a long-term business growth opportunity.”

According to Hitashi Garg, founder at UniShop (Now PhoneShop), “When Ayushi & Sanam from Passion Connect reached out to us, we were not even thinking of the acquisition. However, we gave it a shot. Once we spoke to Nakul, Amit and Mandeep, we could feel like one team in two different companies. Both UniShop and Cashify could see synergies, where both wanted to help small retailers compete with the big boys. We were sold to the vision and idea of doing the same at a much larger scale with Cashify. Whatever scale we wanted to achieve can easily be achieved by becoming a part of Cashify. It was irresistible!”

According to Sanam Rawal, Lead Talent Advisor at Passion Connect and Swati Gupta, Acquisitions and Acquihiring Lead “When we reached out to UniShop, we instantly saw the talent that the team has and the potential in their product. We loved their way of thinking and knew that Cashify would be a good fit. We facilitated conversations between the two and acted as a unifying bridge during negotiations. We are absolutely proud to welcome the UniShop team to the Blume Ventures ecosystem, and hope that they have a productive and fulfilling journey at Cashify.”