OmniRetail is Deepankar Rustagis second stab at a technology-enabled marketplace. For his second turn, he believes he has cracked the code.
When Deepankar Rustagi founded Vconnect in 2010, it was one of Nigerias first marketplace products for hiring freelancers and artisans. Despite reaching over 400,000 businesses, an absence of integrated payments in a pre-Flutterwave world caused problems, and Vconnect closed its doors in 2017.
In 2019,Rustagi took another stab at another marketplace, this time for fast-moving consumer goods. He set out to digitise Nigerias traditional supply chain with OmniRetail, a B2B e-commerce startup that connects retailers to manufacturers and distributors.
OmniRetail is a function of Rustagis sales experience in Tolaram, the Indomie noodles maker, and a first-hand understanding of the bumpy road manufacturers must take to reach retailers. Technology is the asphalt that makes the road smoother, Rustagi believes.
Building this road with technology in Africas large informal markets is challenging. Traditional wholesalers, who have deep networks of retailers, and buy enough volumes to receive discounts from manufacturers, are difficult to unseat.
