There are thousands of questions asked on search engines every week for Asort company. The two most common answers are that Asort is a multi-level marketing company or a shopping app with referrer based marketing. Both of these are incorrect. The reality of Asort is that it is India’s first ever co-commerce platform.
Asort company was registered in India as Dynamic Beneficial Accord Marketing Pvt. Ltd. (CIN: U51909PB2011PTC035491). Asort was founded in Mohali, Punjab in 2011 and is now 14 years old. Asort company has created a platform that is very unique to the Indian business world. The platform is community driven and Asort company has sustained and made it successful through a pandemic, recessions and the typical five year mortality rate of Indian startups.
In clear terms, Asort company has created a structure that is unique. They design, produce and own their products through a portfolio that includes lifestyle products. Instead of using retail channels or eCommerce to sell their products, Asort has a network of entrepreneurs that sell the products through their direct and social networks.
The company manages everything related to supply: product design, manufacturing, quality control, warehousing, and logistics. Demand side activities are controlled by partners. This includes sharing, promoting, referring and creating a community around products they actively use and care about.
Co-Commerce: The Business Category Asort Created
Prior to Asort’s establishment, India had two primary commerce models with structural deficiencies that allowed significant value to be left unclaimed. E-commerce models provided access to millions of products but monopolized the value of personal endorsements. You could suggest to ten friends to make a ten-person purchase on the e-commerce website, and yet you would have earned nothing for the endorsement.
The other of the two primary models was selling directly, which paid you for your network. Here, however, the income structure was also inverted because recruitment invariably earned you much more than product sales, creating a much larger incentive to bring new members than to ensure that these members, and their respective customers, were actually satisfied with their purchases.
Co-commerce is Asort’s simultaneous solution for both problems. Your social influence effectively becomes your business. You simply sell items that you use and appreciate. If your contact makes the purchasing decision, you earn Asort Points— which are a tradeable currency set to a cash conversion rate of 2 AP for ₹1. The size of your Asort Points account depends on your personal effort and social network, and not an arbitrary limit set by the company. Asort is not a shopping app with a referral program. It is a community based entrepreneurship program where every participant is a customer, a marketer, and a business owner.
What do 14 Years, 10 Lakh Partners, 7 Brands mean?
Being a part of the Indian Start-up ecosystem for this length of time, in and of itself, is a differentiating value. Most start-ups finish folding or merging in under 5 years. Asort is one of the few that have continued uninterrupted for this long, with 14 years, consistent filings and steadily increasing clients.
That clientele consists of over 10 Lakh partners and is still growing, with the majority in the less developed areas and cities of India. This is a strategic choice by the Executive Board, as they know and have seen that formal employment is lacking in these areas and community entrepreneurship is necessary in order to fulfill the needs of the locals.
The COVID-19 pandemic provides clear evidence of the model’s resilience. While physical retail in India experienced a steep decline, Asort sold 700,000 units and added 500,000 new partners. A company that expands despite the contraction of a conventional commerce model is not in a good spot. Instead, it is proving that its fundamental model can be sustained despite the conditions that are eroding conventional retail.
The resilience of the model and the company can be credited to the product side that is composed of 7 premium in-house brands: Ifazone (youth fashion), Mr. Huffman (premium menswear), Amiiga (beauty), Kuefit (fitness), Solasta (accessories), Cape & Cloth (casual lifestyle), and ABG (bold fashion). The brands are entirely designed, manufactured, and QC checked by Asort to avoid uncontrolled third-party sellers. When a partner sells an Asort product, the partner is promoting a product the company is directly responsible for.