[Abbas]

Originally Posted by Amsdoc

What a brilliant story! Kudos, Abbas and super well done. As Winston Churchill (absolute git from our point of view, but orator of splendid speeches) once said "Never let a good crisis go to waste", you have really stepped up in this one.
May I suggest that you keep updating the original post as it become difficult to scroll through pages for updates.

Thanks a ton. Noted on the thread updation part.

Originally Posted by AZT

Great work, you guys source from the Kirana shops so that's even better. Wish you and team the best Abbas.

Thanks. We sometimes Google for a Kirana store near the address of the customer and send him payments directly and ask the store to deliver.

Originally Posted by alikidwhy

Congratulations on your venture first of all Abbas.

Noob question but would you mind telling me how you ship packages? I mean the delivery packaging and Label?

I have started an e-commerce business as well and am figuring out the labelling process.

In E-commerce shipping has become very standard. Almost all of them follow the same pattern. Find a delivery partner convenient to you, schedule a pickup, print label and stick it to your package and its done. We use multiple services like shadowfax, dehlivery, expressbess, bluedart. Depends upon who is serviceable for a perticular pincode.

[Dr.Vikas]

That's really great and inspiring story, TeamAbbas.
You deserve many congratulations not only for building a business model successfully but also for utilizing the critical time when many others just stayed home in helpless manner.
And you in fact helped many others, making their life easy.
All the very best for the bright future of your venture !
Thanks for sharing,

[Flyer]

Congrats Abbas on your venture. Hope you will be able to develop your business to higher levels and continue serving post lockdown. Best wishes to you and your team.

[maddy42]

Congrats Team Abbas. You made a disruption into an opportunity.

You have the hands on experience here but some tips i learnt watching various companies grow here are some of it:
Learn and invest in your team to gain knowledge and grow your business.
Do not dilute your business as the numbers at the early stage given out may sound lucrative but could be a drop in the bucket later.
Focus on your niche skill set or product range at a early stage, more companies die due to SKU.
Keep the UI user friendly and innovative.
Focus on reducing acquisition costs of customers and focus on organic growth. The customer referall system and get your vendors to promote your platform.
Learn the various skills which have been outsourced as you may have to get them in house to reduce costs.
Engage your customer and get their feedback, iron out the issues faced by customer and employees.
Market your company well.

Good luck.

[sudev]

Abbas you and your team did a great job. Hope your wife is now back from out of town enforced stay. I know you are innovative and ready to face new horizons. But a word of caution.

OPPORTUNITY?
I have read all the posts/answers and suggestions with interest. Thinking about it what I felt is that core success was due to community spirit during lockdown. How can you sustain or grow this?

CUSTOMER LOYALTY?
With big boys back in fray customers abandoned you because they get better value for money. Customer loyalty is to what?

Now that you have shifted gears. You are for in for intense competition. What are going to be your core competencies?

So what is the new business model? What will it require to succeed or what will trip it?

I think back to step one needs better exploration and has possibilities of volume through community replications. May be wafer thin margin but high volumes and continuous profitability. And don't loose the best thing "NO COD" even if it means slower growth and long haul.

[Abbas]

Originally Posted by maddy42

Congrats Team Abbas. You made a disruption into an opportunity.

You have the hands on experience here but some tips i learnt watching various companies grow here are some of it:
Learn and invest in your team to gain knowledge and grow your business.
Do not dilute your business as the numbers at the early stage given out may sound lucrative but could be a drop in the bucket later.
Focus on your niche skill set or product range at a early stage, more companies die due to SKU.
Keep the UI user friendly and innovative.
Focus on reducing acquisition costs of customers and focus on organic growth. The customer referall system and get your vendors to promote your platform.
Learn the various skills which have been outsourced as you may have to get them in house to reduce costs.
Engage your customer and get their feedback, iron out the issues faced by customer and employees.
Market your company well.

Good luck.

I have taken your post as a direction. And while introspecting have realised that we are following the right path.

Originally Posted by sudev

OPPORTUNITY?
I have read all the posts/answers and suggestions with interest. Thinking about it what I felt is that core success was due to community spirit during lockdown. How can you sustain or grow this?

Exact reason we moved to Marketplace Model while still being connected mostly to community businessmans.

Originally Posted by sudev

CUSTOMER LOYALTY?
With big boys back in fray customers abandoned you because they get better value for money. Customer loyalty is to what?

This is where the fight is right now. We are asking sellers to campaign for us and ask their customers to buy from us. Some of them have come on-board to sell exclusively with us. Also, we pass on "Abandoned Checkout" info to sellers so that they could try convincing customers and make a sale. which i don`t think any other platform is providing.

Originally Posted by sudev

I think back to step one needs better exploration and has possibilities of volume through community replications. May be wafer thin margin but high volumes and continuous profitability. And don't loose the best thing "NO COD" even if it means slower growth and long haul.

Currently are focus lies on getting as many sellers on-board where sales commision is healthy. Grocery anyway now accounts for just 5 % of overall sales. Slowly we are going to phase out grocery altogether.

[shebin]

Originally Posted by PearlJam

Congratulations on the venture! Thanks for sharing.

Could you please go into the technical/software related details, the technologies used, etc. Thanks!

Congrats and all the best......

[pd_scorpio]

Originally Posted by Abbas

Starting My Own (Little) Amazon !

Surat, March 24th 2020

"Screw It .... Let's do it!" - Says Richard Branson in his book titled Losing My Virginity where he writes how he started the music record sales business out of sheer necessity.


I am glad we took the plunge that night ...... "Screw it .... Let's do it"

Abbas Taskeen
Co-Founder

The Team
Attachment 2031825

Kudos to the team brother...I would love to see the expansion of the business in our area allowing us to order it on...

[Abbas]

Originally Posted by pd_scorpio

Kudos to the team brother...I would love to see the expansion of the business in our area allowing us to order it on...

Thanks. With the Market Place model we are actually shipping across all pin codes. So please go ahead.

[sudev]

Online reach is tremendous yet for. Only thing that works is to get customer to come repeatedly to your site. People with very very large burn money to create customer base have found no loyalty unless there is something "special". Find that special thing.

[sudev]

An update on where have you reached would be nice at this point of time.

Our response to pandemic has gone from highest alert to that too