I grew up watching my mother buy clothes from a Pokhara boutique she trusted for twenty years. She knew the shopkeeper by name. She could feel the fabric before paying. She never once got scammed.
Then the internet happened. And somehow, the more choices we got, the less we could trust any of them.
The Problem We Couldn't Ignore
In 2023, I ordered a pair of running shoes from a popular Nepal Facebook group. The photo looked great — Nike Air Max, white with a green swoosh, Rs. 3,200. What arrived three days later was a thin-soled knockoff that fell apart in two weeks. The seller had blocked me by the time I tried to complain.
I asked around. Everyone had a version of this story. My Friend paid Rs. 8,500 for a jacket described as 'branded' — it was printed polyester. A friend ordered a skincare product and received a different brand entirely. Nepal's online shoppers were constantly rolling the dice.
What bothered us most wasn't the lost money. It was the broken trust. People were giving up on online shopping entirely, going back to physical stores or COD-only transactions out of fear. Meanwhile, thousands of genuine, hardworking Nepali sellers — home bakers, fashion designers, craft makers — were struggling to prove their products were real in a market that had learned to distrust everyone.
Why Video Changes Everything
The answer was obvious once we saw it. Video cannot be faked the way a photo can. When a seller holds a product in front of a camera, turns it around, stretches the fabric, shows the stitching, demonstrates the function — you see exactly what you're buying. The gap between 'what I ordered' and 'what arrived' collapses.
TikTok had already proved this globally. In the US and Southeast Asia, live shopping and short-form video commerce were growing faster than any other retail format. But in Nepal? Nothing. Every local platform was still running on static photos from 2015.
That was the gap. That was Troverve.
Building in Pokhara
we started building the first version of Troverve in Pokhara in early 2025 with a small team of developers and designers who shared the same frustration. We weren't building for the tech community in Kathmandu — we were building for my mother, for the Rs. 3,200 shoe buyer, for the Mustang apple seller who deserves to reach customers without a middleman taking 40 percent.
Building a two-sided marketplace in Nepal comes with real challenges: payment infrastructure that still leans heavily on cash on delivery, logistics networks that don't reach every district, and a market where trust has been eroded by years of scammy Facebook sellers. We had to design for all of it.
The escrow system was non-negotiable from day one. Every transaction on Troverve holds the buyer's payment until they confirm delivery. Sellers know they get paid when the buyer is satisfied. Buyers know their money doesn't disappear if something goes wrong. No other Nepal marketplace operates this way at launch.
Where We Are Today
As of June 2026, Troverve is in pre-launch with a growing waitlist of Nepali buyers and sellers across Pokhara, Kathmandu, Chitwan, and beyond. We are finalising seller onboarding, delivery partnerships, and the final product experience before opening to the public.
If you are a Nepali seller with products you're proud of, or a buyer who is tired of getting burned — this platform is being built for you. Join the waitlist at troverve.com and be among the first to experience Nepal's online shopping the way it should have always been.
What Comes Next
We will be publishing honest updates about our building journey here in the Troverve Journal — the wins, the setbacks, and the features we are working on. If you want to follow along, subscribe to our newsletter below.
Nepal's online shopping is about to change. We are grateful you are here for it.
