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What Is Asort Company | India’s First Co-Commerce Platform — The Complete ExplainerWhat Is Asort Company |
Asort Is Not What You Think It Is
Every week, thousands of people in India search for some version of the same question on Google. The most common question is, “what is Asort company?” There are two possible answers people expect the most. The first option is that it is a multi-level marketing company (MLM), and the second option is for it to be a shopping app that has a referral system. Neither option is the answer, and understanding the answer provides new context for evaluating the platform.
Asort, which is legally named Dynamic Beneficial Accord Marketing Pvt. Ltd. (CIN: U51909PB2011PTC035491), is the first co-commerce platform in India. It began operating in 2011 and is based in Mohali, Punjab. Asort is a rare success in the Indian business landscape. Asort has built a community-driven commerce model that has survived the regular five-year mortality period of Indian startups, a global pandemic, and recessions.
Asort has lifestyle products that span multiple categories: fashion, beauty, fitness, accessories, and home essentials. Instead of using a traditional retail channel to sell these products, Asort sells its products through a network of more than 10 lakh partner-entrepreneurs.
The company designs everything and controls everything related to the supply side like manufacturing, QC, warehousing, and logistics. The partners control everything related to the demand side like sharing, promoting, referring, and creating communities of people around products they actually use.
Co-Commerce: The Business Category Asort Created
Prior to Asort’s entry, India had two major commerce models, both with a design flaw that completely disregarded value. E-commerce platforms let you buy almost anything, and they benefited most from your personal referrals. You could have ten friends buy something from a marketplace, and you’d earn exactly nothing for your time and effort.
The other major model, direct selling, did compensate you for your network, but the compensation structure was inverted most of the time. The recruitment of new members was incentivized more than the sale of actual products, which, in turn, incentivized the recruiting of new members much more than ensuring the new members, and their customers, were satisfied with their purchases.
Co-commerce solves both problems. Your social influence becomes the business model itself. You handpick and share products that you know, use, and love. When a contact makes a purchase through your referral link, you win Asort Points, which is Asort’s proprietary currency. The guaranteed conversion rate ensures that 2 AP = ₹1. Unlike other businesses where artificial caps decide your earning limits, with Asort, the only limits to your earning potential are based on your effort and your entrepreneurial network.
Asort is more than a shopping app with a referral system. It is a community of entrepreneurs where each member is a customer, promoter, and, most importantly, a business owner.
Asort Co-Commerce Model – How Asort Differs from a ‘Traditional Business
This is the most pivotal question in determining whether a potential client respects and trusts Asort, or, whether they dismiss it straight away. For that reason, this answer will be more structural than defensive.
In Multi-Level Marketing, you can make money off the mere act of signing people up to your downline, regardless of whether they sell, or even buy, anything at all. It is this design which contradicts the Direct Selling Guidelines in India and causes pyramid schemes to eventually collapse. Eventually recruiting members into the scheme will lose value over time, and that is when the scheme collapses.
Asort’s structure lacks such a mechanic. An income event (earning Asort Points or receiving a credit for Group Profit) happens only after a transaction occurs. You cannot earn by only recruiting at Asort. If your invitee never makes a purchase nor a sale, you earn nothing. No one sells, no one profits. This single design feature is the only difference, and is apparent in the structure of their earn plan.
14 Years, 17 lakh Partners, 7 Brands — The Significance of these Numbers
Sustaining a business for a longer duration in India’s startup ecosystem is a value proposition in and of itself. Most startups fail, pivot or merge within 5 years. Asort has been active for 14 years. Asort has continuous annual operations and fills annual compliance with an increasing partner network.
Currently, this network is over 1 million and 1 lakh partners with a presence in over 20 Indian states and even greater in Tier 2 and 3 cities. This is where there is the greatest need for community based entrepreneurship and where formal jobs are nonexistent. This is where Asort wants to work.
The model’s resilience was best demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Retail sales in India experienced a sharp decline, but during this time, Asort managed to sell 7 lakh units and add 5 lakh new partners. While the traditional business model was failing, Asort was expanding this model’s application in new areas. This illustrates how the failure of traditional retail does not impact the business model’s structure.
Asort’s in-house brands also showcase this resilience. Ifazone (youth fashion), Mr. Huffman (premium menswear), Amiiga (beauty), Kuefit (fitness), Solasta (accessories), Cape & Cloth (casual lifestyle), and ABG (bold fashion) are all brands owned and operated by Asort. Each product in these brands is designed, manufactured, and QA’d by Asort itself. When a partner markets an Asort product, the partner can trust the product and, in turn, will not lose the trust of the consumer.
Asort is a legitimate business, 14 years old, recognized by the DIPP, and is based on sellable products rather than on recruiting. It is not a multi-level marketing scheme, a pyramid scheme, or a get-rich-quick scheme. Asort is a legitimate opportunity that rewards partner efforts and the community-building activities done by partners.
