OneGreen is Asia’s largest e-comm marketplace for conscious consumers: Neha Gahlaut

In this Interview with Adgully, Neha Gahlaut, Co-Founder & CMO of OneGreen, discusses the company’s inspiration, challenges, and goals. OneGreen is Asia’s largest e-commerce marketplace for conscious consumers, offering over 20,000 products by more than 500+ brands across various categories. The interview also covers the OneGreen Index, a unique proprietary technology that serves as a three-step quality and credibility measurement model for the e-commerce sector, and OneGreen’s role in promoting sustainable living and conscious consumerism in Asia and beyond. The response from both consumers and brands towards OneGreen’s mission and platform is positive, and the company has been recognised and certified by the Government of India for its efforts towards sustainability. Excerpts:

What inspired you to co-found OneGreen, and what challenges did you face while setting it up? Where do you see yourself two years from now? Your forecasts?

OneGreen is Asia’s largest e-commerce marketplace for conscious consumers. Our TG is those who believe in living a healthy life and helping maintain the balance of nature. The idea for OneGreen came to us right after the birth of our second child, wherein we started transitioning to a more mindful lifestyle. However, there were challenges in adopting this kind of a lifestyle because there were no platforms where we could find clean and natural products.

Second, the information available was scattered and not complete, not to mention the fact that we did not know which brands to trust for conscious products. It was then that the pandemic struck and consumers started increasingly looking for safer, healthier, and greener options. There was a massive need and we co-founded OneGreen to address this market gap. Today, we are synonymous with conscious consumerism in India for most people and offer more than 20,000 products by over 500+ brands across various categories. This makes us Asia’s largest e-commerce player in this space.

Going forward, we plan to widen our market reach and coverage and provide a platform to brands that are focused on leaving a better planet for our future generations. We have already made an impact on the market and are growing at the rate of 70% month on month. Our aim is to become the singular destination for everything pure, safe, and natural and capture a certain market-share by the end of FY24. At OneGreen, we do not just want to build a profitable business, but also make the society at large focused on their own health and that of the environment.

You have worked across various organisations, including large FMCG players such as L’Oreal. How did that experience shape your understanding of the consumer of today?

At L’Oreal, I had hands-on experience of understanding the TG that OneGreen primarily caters to currently – women – who are the decision-makers and the ones to drive any lifestyle changes at home. While there may not have been any direct learning in terms of conscious consumerism, I was able to gauge the digital spending and buying habits of this segment. This has shaped a lot of our thought process at OneGreen.

Could you share some insights into the process of developing the OneGreen Index, and how it helps ensure quality and credibility of products on the platform?

The OneGreen index is a unique proprietary technology that serves as a three-step quality and credibility measurement model for the e-commerce sector. It uses AI, ML and Scrapping-based algorithms with weighted multi-variables to ascertain a ‘Clean Score’. The Index undertakes certification checks of the products by verifying certificates from over 200 Indian and international certifying authorities, followed by label checking by our in-house experts.

What role do you see OneGreen playing in promoting sustainable living and conscious consumerism in Asia and beyond?

OneGreen is Asia’s largest e-commerce marketplace for conscious consumers. In today’s era of conscious consumerism, people are increasingly looking for an online marketplace where they can get pure, safe, clean, green products without having to worry about whether what the brands claim are true or false. At OneGreen, we have already removed that barrier for them through our multiple levels of verification and the OneGreen Index. Our unique proprietary index serves as a three-step quality and credibility measurement model for the ecommerce sector. It has been built and implemented to provide Level A assurance and confidence among customers, who are provided with complete clarity about the credibility of all the products available on the platform.

The D2C market is already being driven by consumers who are aware of what they want and trust only those brands which stand true to their claim of ensuring sustainability in both their products and how they operate – and at OneGreen, the fact that we only have these committed brands on our platform ensures that we fulfil our purpose of promoting sustainable living and conscious consumerism further.

How has the response been from both consumers and brands towards OneGreen’s mission and platform?

There is an increasing awareness among people, especially millennials and Gen Z, about the need to adopt a cleaner lifestyle. This includes the need to know what they consume, the ingredients used, and the impact of all this on the planet. Conscious consumerism is set to bolster the growth of clean-living marketplaces since consumers are willing to spend more on products that come with a certification of being natural and clean. This will be further fuelled by the foray of traditional FMCG into this sector. Brands like OneGreen have become synonymous with conscious consumerism in India for a good percentage of consumers.

Since the launch and from the time we started marketing and brand building for OneGreen around July 2021, we started customer acquisition very strategically, and now have a solid customer base with very healthy repeats and AOVs.

OneGreen has been recognised and certified by the Government of India. Could you share more about what this means for the platform and its users?

The Government of India has been continually emphasizing on sustainability, and encouraging the adoption of green and eco-friendly practices. The recent budget also revealed information about the Green Credit Programme which will be run under the Environment (Protection) Act. The programme will incentivize corporates, local bodies, and even individuals adhering to sustainable practices and contributing to the cause by mobilizing additional resources towards this objective. The aim of the Green Credit Programme is to encourage more people and entities to act against climate change and individually as well as collectively reduce carbon footprints. All these steps will go a long way in enabling a platform like OneGreen to further its objective of promoting green brands and their products – and the larger goal of furthering conscious consumerism and sustainable operations.

What plans does OneGreen have for future expansion and growth? How do you balance the need for profits with the mission of promoting sustainable and ethical living?

Every brand has a two-fold objective in the current business landscape – running profitably and second, to ensure that its operations are sustainable and cater to the growing population of conscious consumers. At OneGreen, we are happy about having been able to achieve a great balance between both these objectives. This is primarily because our vision itself is driven towards catering to the conscious consumer and offering them products that are ethical, clean, and eco-friendly in nature. We ensure this through verification and validation of the brands that are present on our platform. Our aim is to support honest and indigenous brands, offer the convenience of anytime, anywhere delivery to our customers, and promote conscious living, even as we grow as a brand.

What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs who want to create a business with a strong social or environmental impact?

At the outset, it is important to be clear about your objective – the how and why of your brand. What was the purpose or inception point for your brand? Only when there is a strong driving force, in terms of creating a larger impact, can you take that step forward. The second and most important thing is to focus on operating sustainably and growing steadily. Identify your TG and understand what their aspirations are. Make sure to carry out thorough market analysis and identify the gaps. Last but not the least, invest in technology as an enabler toward growth. As an entrepreneur, you have the power to make a lasting impact through your brand or products and services.