How I started a store on Swiggy Minis
As a freelance illustrator currently I am trying to track down my month’s work and strike a balance between personal explorative projects, commissions and design/illustration projects from clients and this is what led to set up a shop that’s not just easy but fun to manage.
For years together, starting from 2009 when I first tabled at the college small entrepreneur’s meet, The MOP college Bazaar, where I sold bookmarks I wanted to figure out setting up an online shop, setting up a retail store is the eventual dream. But the online space has always been something I wanted to conquer in my own pace. It did not seem to work for me then and I did not know how to go about setting up a website at all.
I have looked at ETSY since before its launch in India, like many Indian creators at that time, and it has always posed some problem or the other for me. And setting up a store online using a website was not something I could put time and money aside for. I was self driven but there were bigger priorities. Even now, Etsy stores looks absolutely cozy and amazing, and I wish I could set one up and profit from it. More on Etsy in a separate article.
In November 2016, the first time I quit a job without finding another one I decided to sell some of my art online. By the time I created something to sell it was 2017 and to my surprise a lot of people bought my art thorugh Instagram DM or Facebook Dms. My friends promoted me and supported me through this. A lot of new followers popped up, lot of strangers bought my art at this time.
But things seemed very bleak, I needed to find a job. I can’t live off a few purchases of my pins and zines. Once I got my job in 2017, I looked into Shopify I thought I could definitely set up a store with Shopify but once again in the platform, and the charges, plus the burden of me taking care of shipping weighed down on me. At the time, I wanted a print on demand platform, where I could just update my art and customers can get it printed on whatever they wanted.
Print-on-demand is not something I personally like but if you get the right sales strategy then you can find your audience for this. The reason I am not a fan of this is, there is no control over how and what it gets printed on and often the paper quality and end product is not very satisfying. I stopped considering Shopify and Big Cartel around this time because it was not a print on demand and setting up a store on it took more time from my creator’s time.
In 2021, I managed to make a set of badges and stickers themed around the Emerald Pigeon which is the Tamil Nadu State bird, I had no idea. It definitely was a hit online.
There is both a convenience and inconvenience with using DMs as a way to secure orders, however 2021 is the most sales I had. People really flocked to buy what I had on offer and I even got orders from non-friend followers and new followers. At this time, I had a full time job and I did not use this as a way to get primary income. I took these designs and set up an Instamojo store but the interest had saturated by then and I got engrossed in a couple of other side projects other than my full time job.
I did a few store updates in 2023 to my InstaMojo store, I wanted the store to be updated and grow as I found steady work but as the sun was setting on Dec 2023 I noticed that Instamojo was not letting me add any new products because of limits on my plan(free). The user interface of Instamojo is annoying as well, and one can only make it more likeable when you pay higher. Honestly I would have paid by mid 2024 if I had not found Swiggy Minis.
My new store on Swiggy Minis is called The Shore City. This is my store logo:
In the Swiggy minis app, a mobile-first approach to e-retail for D2C businesses, the store settings requires us to add a logo and a background to our store logo and thats why this is the final look of the logo(right side image). To make this visual consistent, one has to then promote this final look on all social media platforms which is going to be a bit of hassel for me.
This is how my store looks https://shore-city.mini.store/?path=%2F
I am kind of proud of it.
I had a few options to consider, keep my old store on Instamojo, start a store on Shopify, Amazon Marketplace (for which I do have an approved status), Amazon’s Smart Commerce, Swiggy Minis and Dukkan.
All these platforms that are building their architecture around a Mobile-First approach are competitors to big e-commerce platforms like Shopify in making their services available to D2C brands. At the same time these apps have been born because of the success of Shopify. The main difference is their Mobile-first approach is helpful for customers across backgrounds, and those who do not have or need a desktop or laptop to start their online business. They are replacing shopping throuh instagram DMs and using clunky websites.
Why choose Swiggy Minis over Shopify’s experience? Swiggy mini’s is very easy to set up, you can do everything from your phone and while taking pictures and figuring out your brand aesthetics is time consuming once you do that, adding images and setting shop is very easy. It promises a Zero Commission space for D2C business models.
The main problem I am currently facing is I am unable to connect my instagram or access PlugIns because I do not have a facebook account. And there does not seem to be any other way than creating a new facebook account to help me access these features. A task for this month!
I am curious about the difference between Amazon’s Marketplace and Smart Commerce, and the experience of buying through the Swiggy Minis app. Il be right back with my findings until then, click on the link, leave hearts and buy something!
