Back-to-school shopping only reminds us of long wait times and multiple visits to the shops. Understanding the parents' problems to purchase everything perfect for their little scholars, Swathy Rohit set out to simplify this experience with School Basix - a one-stop eCommerce platform with an exquisitely curated range of top quality, pocket-friendly products that will make shopping for the school season a breeze.

School Basix brings the best quality products to customers’ doorsteps at unbeatable prices. All that this young brand strives for is to make the school shopping experience easy, exciting, and fun. It carefully chooses each product staying true to its core value of ‘Kids over Commerce’. While celebrating women-founded startups, Women Entrepreneur India engages in an exclusive interview with Swathy Rohit to find out more about her brainchild and her entrepreneurship journey.

Give Us A Brief On Your Educational And Professional Background.

I am a Mechanical Engineer from the University of Virginia by education, and I worked in my family-owned textile manufacturing business Premier Mills for 15 years specifically in finished goods. I also worked for five years in education and healthcare as the COO of SNR institutions (Sri Ramakrishna Hospital - a 1000 bedded hospital and colleges/schools in Coimbatore). This gave me a great understanding of both sides of the coin in the business I ventured into. I had dealt with the manufacturing and distribution of uniform fabrics as well as worked in education with vendors and parents.

“Founded in the school season of 2018 by servicing just two schools, today, school Basix is catering to students of more than 400 schools”

What Incited You To Choose This Niche Domain And Establish School Basix?

As a mother of a 14-year-old son I have had first-hand experience of the back-to-school season which is really hectic every year. Four years ago was particularly challenging when we had to make several trips to school to exchange wrong sizes in uniform, they ran out of his shoe size as well, so we had to go to the school mandated store several times. Then came the exercise of buying books, notebooks, his school bag, and stationery which required a lot of trips to multiple stores. Not much had changed since I went to school 25 years ago. On the parents' WhatsApp groups as well, every year people complain endlessly about this particular process and this got me thinking that there had to be a better way of doing this! In 2017, when I was the COO of an educational institution, I had the first-hand experience of the difficulty the institutions were facing organizing this for parents. That is what led to the establishment of School Basix as a one-stop-shop for all back to school supplies.

Tell Us About The Concept Of School Basix And Highlight Its Services & Focus Areas.

We started by building a site to sell uniforms to schools/parents but they were interested in buying more than just uniforms, so we built an e-comm site School Basix (SBX)with other school related products and services to make them available throughout the year with door delivery. We offer Uniforms, shoes, books, bags, stationery, online learning, and several other back to school products and services. We are very customer focused. Customer delight and engagement come first for us.

Elaborate On The USP And Differentiator Of The Organization.

Initially, SBX was built as an E-comm site for products and services and we built the perfect piece of software that we wish we would've found when we started. Later we added microsites for our partner brands and manufacturers. With SBX, we were aiming to make it easy for anyone to set up an online store and manage it. They wouldn’t need to wrestle with finding somebody to help set up Their store, list their products, payment integration, customer support, or have to worry about anything on the back end. They could just sign up on SBX and do it in a matter of minutes. Have a fully operational site in 24 hours.

From the outside, looking at SBX, everyone thinks it is a combination of Amazon and offline B2B traditional sales, and it is all locked up. And, there isn't anything interesting there. However, we do believe in our unique model.

Our strategy is to take the time to build out the foundations of our business and build under the radar. So, this led SBX to build a platform model, which attracted vendors who attract brands who attract merchants who attract customers, it goes on! At the heart of SBX’s culture lies our belief “that commerce isn’t just about selling an item, commerce is a relationship thing, and not a transactional thing”.

It is an amazing and super gratifying part of SBX's journey to have great feedback from our customers, we have been able to help brands and manufacturers increase their business’s multi-fold and repeat customers with great retention rates. And, this is the opportunity to be taken seriously about what can we do, and we put a lot of small things together to act big.

Swathy Rohit, Founder & CEO

Swathy is an experienced Leader with diverse exposure to working in education, healthcare, and the textile industry. She is skilled in Operations, Business Planning, Market Research, Manufacturing, Management, and forms an accurate picture of a woman role model who works towards an inspiring vision.

Focus of School Basix

• Learning more and more every day and growing fast.

• Adding exciting product and service categories to offer the customers

• Offerings at best price is our primary focus.

• Customer engagement and adding value to them