Helping local businesses grow

“If an indigenous entrepreneur starts manufacturing/selling Bull dozers, ilandlo would love to sell it on the website as well,” say the creators of e-commerce site Ilandlo.com. The website is all about opening an opportunity for the local indigenous entrepreneurs to sell their products online in the national and international markets. It’s an online market place where one can buy books, food products, accessories, jewelries, apparels, home décor and many more. This way, sellers have an alternate mode of selling platform online apart from their existing shop or market.  

It should be noted that none of the products on the website are owned by ilandlo and are from different vendors/sellers from different parts of Nagaland and Northeast who solely decides on the price of the products displayed. The website creators inform that www.ilandlo.com is integrated with a safe and secure payment gateway and supports all types of major debit, credit cards, netbanking, cash cards and e-wallets. They have partnerships with courier companies for quick and safe delivery system. It is also mobile compatible and online orders and payments can be made through phones and tabs. They also create and sell e-Books for authors who would like a digital edition. Ilandlo’s mantra ‘Our business is to grow your business’ says it all.    

In business since February 2014, currently, ilandlo is operated out of a small office and warehouse in Bank colony, Dimapur. The founders behind this e-commerce site are Imtisunup Longchar and Lipokjungla Ozukum. After completing Computer Engineering from MNIT, Jaipur, Imtisunup Longchar moved to Delhi where he gained six years of professional experience in the corporate sector. Lipokjungla Ozukum completed management degree from JNTU and also has 5 years of working experience in the corporate sector. They are currently based out of Dimapur.  

To make this particularly unique site stand out, the creators reveal that market research was a challenging one! “We were to fuse technology with the traditional market and the traditional mindset. We had to undergo a research to the lowest level of the markets and understand the market, the product, the producer, the retailer, the wholesaler and the exporter. Our task in hand was to take the village to the city and not the other way round. We wanted the village to grow on its own with its own rich resources and we wanted the cities to experience that as well and get to know about the rural lifestyle. Our main target was to bring in revenue to the state by selling our products out and boost the economy. In our research, we targeted to promote tourism to our states by giving them a firsthand taste of the unique products by making it easily accessible, sitting at their city homes, which would add curiosity to reach out places from where the products came from,” state Imtisunup and Lipokjungla.  

They also shared that Ilandlo’s inspiration is driven by those people who want to produce here and market outside and bring revenue to our state, by those who are so passionate about what they do and are looking for a break in creating a brand of their own. They are motivated by those people who want to make their name in the global market of fashion, designing, art, jewelry, crafts, food processing where ilandlo.com is able to provide a platform in promoting them. On the other hand, whenever we receive a call or an email from somewhere abroad enquiring about these products, we feel that the efforts is not going unnoticed and makes us want to push harder.  

Ilandlo creators opine that E-commerce has a chance to grow and expand when our infrastructure in power and connectivity becomes stronger. On the other hand, the habit of online shopping is gradually picking up though we still have a long way to go. Most of us are still Facebook or whatapp users from mobile phones and not internet users in general. We are very skeptical of providing personal banking details to purchase online. So once the idea of online shopping becomes a habit, majority will prefer to sit at home and order online rather than go out shopping.

  Ilandlo.com has been receiving tremendous response from buyers not only from all parts of India but also abroad especially from the US, UK, UAE and Canada. But Imtisunup and Lipokjungla share that in the two years span, they are not able to reach each and every manufacturer or finished goods producers, authors etc, especially from other districts and villages of Nagaland and throughout Northeast to talk about the service ilandlo.com provide to boost their income. Another hurdle is convincing the older generation sellers about the online selling concept. Even though it is the same as keeping your products in a shop to sell with some commission, just because the word is “Online”, many are skeptical to try this mode of selling. Just like any other online marketplace, our payment system to sellers is post-paid where invoices are generated only after a product is sold. However, many prefer to sell in cash to us instead of listing on the website as their product or brand. Many say they do not care about creating a brand but only care whether they can sell it as soon as possible in cash and so that is the gap of mentality that we struggle to convince.  

Imtisunup and Lipokjungla intend to take ilandlo a long way and exist in the future marking themselves as a major market share holder in the ecommerce industry. In the meantime, their upcoming strategy is to gather funds from potential investors with whom they would like to venture into the future plans together. “We see scopes in venturing into different sectors of smart business which would enhance the use of ecommerce to online shoppers and help sellers expand their marketing opportunities at the same time,” they add hopefully.

  As noted Naga novelist Easterine Kire puts it, ilandlo is indeed “the little Amazon of Nagaland”!