About Pooja
I started in financial services at Citigroup, on the UK credit cards portfolio, before moving to Australia. From there I worked as a Web Solutions Consultant at Melbourne IT and as a Marketing Analyst at Zoho, which is where digital marketing and product strategy became the work rather than the side of it.
Dropped Pin grew out of my fashion blog, The Lust List. It sourced high-street international labels from the US, UK, and Europe for an Indian market that could not buy them yet. The Economic Times and The Indian Express both covered it. Alongside it I ran ecommerce at BLVD Ecommerce, the venture business behind Netmeds, launching 250Lloyds for flash-sale resale furniture and gemnln for gold jewellery, and briefly co-founded Luxeyard India.
I moved into enterprise next. At Catch.com.au I ran merchandising against a $200M P&L on Mirakl, holding category margins above 40%. Then Coles Supermarkets, where I owned online merchandising and strategic partnerships: a $1.1B P&L and a team of 31, eight direct and twenty-three offshore, covering product, business analysis, merchandising, range, and business development. Much of that job was coordination with Legal, IT, Finance, store operations, and offshore partners, which is the part nobody writes into the job description. We launched the world's first grocery marketplace on eBay, rolled Click & Collect across 800+ supermarkets on the Ocado stack, and cut average delivery time by 35%.
At GS1 Australia I was Account Director for eCommerce & Marketplaces. I led the market introduction of Verified by GS1 into eBay listing standards, Google Shopping product requirements, and Amazon Brand Registry, negotiating adoption with each platform and rolling it out across 300+ retail and FMCG brands. That is where data standards stopped being an abstraction for me. I took it to Lasoo.com.au as Head of eCommerce Marketplace and turned a catalogue business into a working marketplace on Marketplacer, signing 60+ retailers in six months at 120% month-on-month GMV growth, with a further 15% revenue uplift from retail media.
Today I am Founder and CEO of PurvX, a resale marketplace for South Asian clothing, wedding items, and decor, operating out of San Francisco and Chennai. First six months: 8x active users and 3.2x verified-seller conversion.
Professional Timeline
Founder & CEO
PurvX — PurvX Marketplace Inc. and PurvX India
Aug 2023 – Present · San Francisco, USA & Chennai, India
Peer-to-peer resale marketplace for Indian ethnic wear.
- Grew active users 8x in the first six months and lifted verified-seller conversion 3.2x through trust mechanisms and onboarding governance.
- Designed and enforced end-to-end listing governance: a relevance-ranking algorithm with anti-gaming guards, an enforcement chain that auto-closes non-compliant listings with full audit trails, and structured change-request controls for price, media, and measurement edits.
- Shipped a stale-listing program with staged seller notifications, self-service remediation, and automated close-out for non-response.
- Every product, architecture, and enforcement-policy decision. Large language models used daily across risk detection, policy drafting, and governance operations.
Head of eCommerce Marketplace
Lasoo.com.au — IVE Group, ASX-listed
Jun 2022 – Mar 2023 · Melbourne, Australia
Turned a catalogue business into a working two-sided marketplace on Marketplacer.
- Signed 60+ retailer agreements in the first six months across fashion, home, electronics, and lifestyle, against managed vs self-serve criteria that held throughout.
- 120% month-on-month GMV growth, with supply and demand controls enforced so growth did not outrun platform capacity.
- Lifted commission take rate roughly 65x off a near-zero base through tiered seller agreements and category-mix rules, holding listing and seller quality flat.
- A further 15% revenue uplift from retail media.
Account Director, eCommerce & Marketplaces
GS1 Australia
Aug 2019 – May 2022 · Melbourne, Australia
Product-listing and catalogue-quality standards, marketplace side and brand side.
- Led the market introduction of Verified by GS1 into eBay listing standards, Google Shopping product requirements, and Amazon Brand Registry.
- Negotiated adoption terms with the product and partnership teams at Google Shopping, Amazon, eBay, and Alibaba.
- Built the brand-side rollout across 300+ retail and FMCG brands, advising CTOs, CMOs, and Chief Digital Officers on platform compliance and catalogue-data investment.
- Represented GS1 at international retail and ecommerce forums.
Head of Online Merchandising & Strategic Partnerships
Coles Online — Coles Supermarkets
Sep 2017 – Jul 2019 · Melbourne, Australia
AUD $1.1B P&L. A 31-person team: 8 direct, 23 indirect and offshore. Coles was Wesfarmers-owned until the November 2018 demerger.
- Negotiated and launched the world's first grocery marketplace on eBay, Coles x eBay Pantry, generating multimillion-dollar annual recurring revenue.
- Rolled out Click & Collect across 800+ supermarkets on the Ocado technology stack and cut average delivery time 35%.
- Operated across Legal, Product, IT, supply chain, and finance, plus Accenture, Ocado, and eBay externally.
- Led the regulatory and labour dialogue with the Transport Workers Union on contractor classification, pay floors, and conditions.
Head of Merchandising
Catch.com.au
Feb 2017 – Sep 2017 · Melbourne, Australia
AUD $200M P&L across Catch DTC and Catch Marketplace on Mirakl.
- Held gross margin above 40% across the category portfolio.
- Lifted category conversion 18% through site navigation and taxonomy work that improved listing findability.
Digital Marketing Manager
Save the Children Australia
2015 – 2017 · Melbourne, Australia
Digital marketing for the not-for-profit.
VP eCommerce
BLVD Ecommerce
2010 – 2014 · India
Ecommerce venture business run by the team behind Netmeds. Ran alongside Dropped Pin.
- Launched 250Lloyds, a flash-sale resale furniture marketplace.
- Launched gemnln, gold jewellery and Italian charm bracelets.
Co-founder
Luxeyard India
Early 2010s · India
Brief co-founding stint on the Indian arm of the flash-sale luxury marketplace.
Founder
Dropped Pin
2010 – 2014 · India
One of India's earliest fashion ecommerce startups, grown out of The Lust List fashion blog.
- Sourced international high-street labels from the US, UK, and Europe for an Indian market that could not buy them yet.
- Bootstrapped. Covered by The Economic Times and The Indian Express.
Marketing Analyst
Zoho Corporation
2008 – 2009 · Chennai, India
Digital marketing and product strategy.
Web Solutions Consultant
Melbourne IT
2006 – 2008 · Melbourne, Australia
Web solutions and digital strategy.
Cards Operations, UK Portfolio
Citigroup
Earlier career · India
Started in financial services on the UK credit cards portfolio.
Education
MBA
Swinburne University of Technology
Australia
Bachelor of Engineering
Anna University
Electronics & Communications
India
Australian Citizen
Core Competencies
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