Jayant Jha’s Guide to Foster Business in Niche Sectors

Growing problems call for solutions and these opportunists always look for such problems to accumulate, where they can find their base to grow.

Similarly, an online marketplace for repair, refurbish and resale of smartphones was never heard about 5 years ago but now it is a fully fledged industry running on its own and making jaw-dropping profits.

Yaantra is one name in this sector, which has sold 500,000 units of refurbished smartphones in two years.

Changing Perception

Yaantra was founded by Jayant Jha, Ankit Saraf and Anmol Gupta in 2013, the company has managed to change the perception of the second-hand mobile phone industry in the offline grey market, in India, by establishing an organized online marketplace. The company has a turnover of over 100 cr making them a formidable leader in this market space.

Jayant Jha, CEO and Co-founder, Yaantra, says, “The refurbished smartphones market is set to grow by 27% in coming years, where the market size for repair is USD 2 billion and for the refurb is USD 4 billion expected to reach USD 10 Billion by FY2022.”

Technological Evolution:

It is impossible to imagine a business running without the help of technology and for detecting problems inside a smartphone seems like a tougher task, which is why Yaantra came up with its own technology.

Jha explains, “Yaantra has developed proprietary technology to diagnose phones. We have a team that diligently works to identify the faults in smartphones before repairing and testing them. It is a meticulous process.”

Trigger Point

Jha speaks about the emergence of this sector out of pure need and nothing else.

He says, “The trigger point of entering repair segment was when I gave my smartphone for repair. The experience I had was not up to my expectations. It got me thinking about how I could make repair services more effective, simplified, and professional. Soon after launching Yaantra we could see the increased demand coming from existing customer base for refurbished smartphones.”

Jha adds, “We thoroughly evaluated the existing opportunities in the market with 60% of the users still using feature phones. With low-cost 4G data network, people are now switching to smartphones and affordability is the key factor which drives consumers to buy refurbished phones, making the overall cost of superlative technology accessible to many.”

Finding its Runway

Jha elaborates how Yaantra found its runway to take off smoothly as a business.

He says, “Emerging from a traditionally unorganized and fragmented market, we aim to successfully integrate our resources both online and in brick and mortar retail to make smart devices affordable and accessible. We could see the unavailability of an organized repair chain mechanism. And the solution offered by existing OEM has included finding out service centers, traveling and repair delays, do not go very well with the customers.”

He adds, “A need exists of a convenient and a reliable service provider. The repair services offered by Yaantra are accompanied with warranty, which local markets don’t usually offer. This need was essentially what formed our base in the market.”

Guidance to Cultivate Business in a Niche Sector

Jayant Jha shares from his own experience, some important tips to grow business in a niche sector:

• Evolve with the growing needs of the market.
• Maintaining high levels of customer service throughout.
• Increasing the accessibility by constantly expanding.