Britannia Marie Gold, a biscuit brand launched HerStore, a digital ecosystem for women entrepreneurs honoring its commitment from 2023 of #LetsKeepGoing to celebrate women everyday.
The tagline is “Saath Judo, Saath Udo”.
HerStore, powered by Britannia Marie Gold has taken the initiative towards its commitment with the launch of a marketplace which lists both products and services – all owned by women. The platform will also soon offer a comprehensive suite of training, workshops, and upskilling videos tailored to equip women entrepreneurs with the skills and knowledge. This will be complemented with a community to enable knowledge sharing and mentoring among womenpreneurs. The platform will also further fuel aspiring womenpreneurs with access to Britannia Marie Gold Mystartup Contest Season 5.
HerStore is built on learning from four immensely successful chapters of Britannia Marie Gold Mystartup programme. The programme was initiated in 2019 to enable women to overcome barriers with respect to finance and upskilling required to embark on their entrepreneurial journeys. Thus far, MyStartup Contest has provided seed funding of Rs. 10 lakhs each for over 50 entrepreneurs and equipped 50k+ women with the skills to start their business. More than 25 of the winners now have thriving businesses, and already over 10 winners have been onboarded on HerStore.
The strategic design of HerStore with the proposition of ‘Shop | Be Inspired | Sell,’ is aimed at democratising an end to end ecosystem for women business owners. HerStore is a platform to list both products and services for Indian consumers at no additional cost to sellers and 0 percent commission model. The platform will soon be available in several Indian languages such as Hindi, Kannada, Bengali, Tamil and many more. Currently, over 50 businesses have already been listed on HerStore marketplace.
Amit Doshi, chief marketing officer, Britannia Industries said, “At Britannia Marie Gold, our unwavering commitment lies in empowering women entrepreneurs and nurturing their growth. This year, we decided to solidify our commitment by choosing not to do a brand advertisement, but by launching a digital ecosystem which will truly empower women – every single day of the year.
With the launch of the marketplace as the first step, we are hopeful that the ease of managing a business on HerStore along with the extensive Britannia Marie Gold community in India will truly democratise the ecosystem for women entrepreneurs.”
HerStore is conceptualised by MullenLowe Lintas group and the digital ecosystem has been built by Hash Connect.
Subramanyeswar S. (Subbu), group chief executive officer, MullenLowe Lintas Group & Chief Strategy Officer – APAC, MullenLowe Global exclaimed, “Britannia Marie Gold has a strong emotional resonance among its audience – the Homemakers or as the brand believes them to be – Everyday Athletes. Led by an inspiring purpose to make them “Do more. Be more”, the new idea “HerStore” is a movement to empower and support womenpreneurs. ‘HerStore’ is also special to us as it’s the very first initiative from Lowe Lintas DX, our digital creative unit set up in collaboration with Meta. Their offering of advanced strategic and creative services, specifically designed for long-term brand building in the digital domain, was a perfect fit for this particular drive from Britannia.
I have no doubt that ‘HerStore’ will help revolutionize the digital landscape on the web. It embodies the spirit of the brand to enable entrepreneurship and drive meaningful change in the lives of the Everyday Athlete!”
Vinod Kumar, chief strategy officer at Hash Connect, emphasized the project’s unique challenges. “Creating HerStore posed distinct challenges – our goal was to build a robust technology platform empowering women entrepreneurs as sellers. Simultaneously, we aimed to ensure a simple yet sophisticated user experience. Another element of uniqueness is that HerStore caters to not just e-commerce businesses with products, but services and local businesses as well. Leveraging our e-commerce knowledge and insights into Indian consumer behavior, we’ve built a platform promising an excellent experience for sellers, buyers, and the brand.”