Indore’s First E-Grocery portal is live | ShopKirana

By Tanutejas Saraswat on March 18, 2013 41 Comments / 2581 views

Updated: 2015

ShopKirana is a very unique name. We are using this name for our new venture ” ShopKirana- Empowering Retailers” which is launched in Feb 2015 which is a b2b marketplace.

Keep looking this place for more updates.

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Hello Rodinhooders,

After reading different inspirational blogs at Rodinhood, to achieve something, to create something meaningful and above all after knowing the answer of WHY? We have started an online grocery, Kirana, home needs store in Indore. www.shopkirana.com

Whenever we feel like running, we stand straight, take our positions, look around for family(because they are always there to cheer up which motivates every runner to win the race) and then we bend down and run in a lightening speed.

We are in that position now, we have got the idea, product in hand, passion, dedication, team and vision to win this race and also looked around and found you all cheering up for us, we felt out of this world.

About seven months back, I’ve got the idea to sell groceries online because people now a days are lacking time, they want everything at their door steps and I personally feel that internet is the future so we have jumped in this ocean with a very unique idea to win this race.

In a search of WHY?

I still remember, a year back when I visited Alok sir’s office and explained him some gaming concept. He asked me just one simple question, Why? I had no answer for that simple question.

Today! We have an answer of WHY!

Why we have started Grocery Portal?

Because in today’s era, people are very busy, they have hectic schedule. So in order to save their time, money, petrol and n number of things we have started this portal.

Everything is going online. Everybody is buying pant, shirts, gifts online then why not grocery?

We have made it so simple for users to get into ShopKirana and purchase items.

Everything we did on portal, we did with some logic behind it.

Few examples-

We have designed ShopKirana.com in such a way that when user visit the portal, he/she will get to see the products directly with their MRP, our Price, discounted percentage, their weight or quantity.

We have given a real time calculator where they can see how much they are saving and how much they are paying.

We have removed the online payment option so that people who are not habitual of online purchasing don’t get uncomfortable in making a purchase. Only cash on delivery.

We have designed the site in such a way that even a non tech savvy person, specially women(house wife’s who don’t get online to buy stuffs) can make an order without taking help of anyone. Because we believe home ration or grocery purchasing power is in the hands of women. She knows what to buy and when to buy. She knows what is missing at her home and what she may need.

Yes! Frankly speaking while designing the portal, we have given importance to women.

After working for approx 7 months on ShopKirana, we have gone live just 20 days back only.

When everything was final and ready to roll in the internet world, I was scared.

Yeah its strange but I was actually very scared. I was about to delay it for a day or two because I had no idea how people gonna react to it?

I was so conscious about everything that I didn’t want to make any single mistake while working live but then again, nothing is perfect. Its a process. Continuous process to make changes and improve the product.

ShopKirana Operations:

ShopKirana is doing its operations in Indore only and have some cities lined up to start operations but before tapping any more cities, we wants to make our base so strong that we don’t think twice when we think of expanding.

Little secrets

To be very honest, rodinhood blogs really helped me to understand little secrets of business. 🙂

Keep reading them everyday.

Everybody knows that startups don’t have much money for hiring any PR firm or any agency who can handle social media page or some tricks to go viral. I along with my 4 members is handling each and everything.

We have two guys for delivery and they feels they are doing something which people never thought.

They work like they own ShopKirana.com (One of our guy told us that he wants to invest some 50,000 in ShopKirana because he believe in the concept. How many times you see your delivery team coming up with funding?? )

And as of now, we have No Facebook ads budget,

No Google Ad words budget,

No flyers budget. ( Even the logo of ShopKirana is Home Made 🙂 )

But soon we will get some funds(from personal bank accounts, relatives, friends, I don’t know from where.) to perform all these tasks. We need to aware people about ShopKirana. We are doing phone marketing and informing people how easy is to purchase home ration/grocery now.

I am on my way to feel the roller coaster ride with ShopKirana journey.

Aim is big. Vision is clear. Response is good.

Please please have a look at ShopKirana and give your feedback and suggestions.

I feel, I am not alone in this journey and there are already approx 2000 rodhinhood members who can actually push it forward 🙂 Help us.

Do share some words or share the URL with friends who are living in Indore, it will be very much helpful for them and for us too to run faster.

And if it seems difficult, give us your blessings to run faster. :).

In all, Help it to grow.

I, Tanutejas Saraswat, writing this letter while sitting in the corner of some 10×10 room in a hope to shake hands with every rodinhooder with a spark in eyes to celebrate the success story of ShopKirana.

We need your support to make people aware about it. In a hope to get some unimaginable kind of help from all. In a hope to create beautiful tomorrow.

Help us in any way you feel comfortable.

Always ready to jump and shine.

” Here is our ShopKirana Facebook Page: ShopKirana “

Chief Learning Officer & Founder at Shopkirana

Tanutejas Saraswat

website: www.ShopKirana.com

Comments

Tanutejas Saraswat

41 Comments

asha chaudhry March 18, 2013, 12:26 pm

tanutejas…

i’ve been looking fwd to this post for quite some time!!!

many many congrats and best wishes. share your fb page here so everyone can LIKE it and spread the love with our indori friends!

keep updating us on the progress of shopkirana.com

p.s: i loved the fact that “blessings” is the first word in your tags….. 🙂
Tanutejas Saraswat March 18, 2013, 12:33 pm

Thank you so much..

This is just the beginning. A long long way to go. 🙂

And for blessings, I really believe in it. Money, sharing are all other things but blessings, its mandatory. 🙂

Our FB page: http://www.facebook.com/myshopkirana
Mahesh Khambadkone March 18, 2013, 1:07 pm

Nice.

If the target is the non-tech savvy, why dont you have an option to call in ?

Is the Before and after price really necessary? What does 6% Off mean – off MRP or of the nearest Big Bazzaar?

How do you ship the products to the consumer – with a van, bike? packaging – bags / boxes?

Is there an easy way to get retention – most homes buy the same thing every month, around the same time – can you offer discounts to define a Monthly Must Have list, and you will confirm with a call each month?
asha chaudhry March 18, 2013, 1:11 pm

i think mk has some really valid suggestions here tanutejas. i think you should ask them how often (once or twice a month) you should call and exactly when (which dates). that way you will convey how serious you are about customer needs & service.

and having a “must have list” or brand preference list of customers would help you in the typical “kuch bhooley toh nahin” syndrome….
Tanutejas Saraswat March 18, 2013, 1:22 pm

Thanks Mahesh Sir for such a valid points.

We are shipping from our own bike. No vans as of now. We are putting shopkirana sticker on every product while delivering.

Yes, we thought of monthly buyers and at the time of delivery, we inform them that they can get additional 1% discount on total bill if they order again. Haven’t tried it yet because we haven’t completed one whole month.

And as per your point, its really very necessary because we are into a business of those products which are getting finish at every month so that means, they should come again. And if not that means, there must be something wrong from our side.

Will work on the model for monthly users strongly.

Thank you very much for such a valid and important points.
Tanutejas Saraswat March 18, 2013, 1:28 pm

We are getting almost same kind of feedback from our users.

They are saying ” its a good thing. We used to shop our grocery by going out. Came to know about ShopKirana.com so tried it as a testing. Will start making full orders from next cycle. “

We have started putting the details of users with the products they purchased on our database and will start pitching them with the best rates every month.

I am happy with the response and only because of COD we are getting orders. (I guess so).

Will definitely going to take advantage of “kuch bhooley toh nahin” syndrome. 🙂
Mahesh Khambadkone March 18, 2013, 1:30 pm

Any reason you don’t get an actual network of Kirana shops involved?

Also, can you elaborate on the WHY you are doing this? I know that in cities like Mumbai, groceries are already just a call away and they deliver even 1 or 2 items. And it’s even better towards the suburbs, when you can ask one shop guy to pick up some other items from other shops on the way in.

So – what will shopkirana solve? is there a specific problem Kirana shops are having (which is why I asked my question above), do smaller towns have a different set of challenges than a Mumbai / Bangalore ?
Tanutejas Saraswat March 18, 2013, 1:57 pm

Why we are doing this?

Because this is Indore’s first E-grocery store. People are not habitual of buying grocery online but to go out every month and buy home ration can not be a fun task because this is not a one time task. They need to go every month to buy home stuffs. We want to end this thing. So that they invest their time in other important tasks. They don’t need to touch and feel every product while buying because its the same product which they are purchasing since ages. And if we can provide them their grocery at discounted prices, they don’t only save money. they are saving fuel, time, ( working on EMI model too)

In Indore, big stores like Best Price and Metro have their warehouse at the outside of city. And they give huge discounts.. And then they have this minimum order of Rs 1000 and also the customer should be a businessman. They don’t entertain service class people as they need Shop license of their customers.

Through ShopKirana, we are eliminating this gap. We are also giving huge discounts with a free home delivery(above 500 INR).

There are some products which is not easily available everywhere. We have those products at ShopKirana. From this portal, customer can buy and even suggest a product and we provide them, call them after getting the item available. for ex- we have this 25Kg of Silver coin Atta which is not easily available at shops. (We came to know this because one grocery shop ordered this and told us about the availability )

ShopKirana will solve all this problems. ( We are working on mid night delivery also for instant foods).

Smaller towns have more challenges than Mumbai or Bangalore because here to insist people to go on website and make an order is a tough task. They also prefer phone booking.

p.s. Sorry I forgt to mention this above. 6% off is on MRP which is equal or competitive to nearest big bazaar prices. 🙂
Manish Golchha March 18, 2013, 3:06 pm

Like your site interface. Just one suggestion as a customer. As you are aware in India if we want to buy anything online, we want to compare rates like airlines but if we go to any big store then we don’t. Similar your concept is online shopping, if you can just show what’s the price going on at big bazaar or metro and what you are providing, I think people will feel more comfortable to buy as they are aware either they are getting product at same price or lower than that.

I don’t know whether its possible or not, but I feel it make sense.
Tanutejas Saraswat March 18, 2013, 3:28 pm

Manish Boss, It makes a perfect sense.

Loved the idea. It will definitely going to help users. But to get the data of Best price or Metro with their prices is a bit difficult task. They dont allow it. So need to find some other way to solve this.

I think if we can provide such thing on ShopKirana, it will be awesome. 🙂 Thanks for your suggestion. You gave us one important feature to work on.

Will try to make it possible soon.
Abhi5hek Gite March 19, 2013, 5:29 am

hey Tanutejas,

All the very best for your venture, just browsed your website. Its a nice and non cluttered interface.

One suggestions, on the about us page, you should make the text left aligned, rather than centrally aligned, Its easier to read that way.

Being a fellow Indori, I hope you make it through to the critical volumes soon, as I know home delivery of goods as a concept can be a good USP in the city, against other local stores, but it can be lost pretty easily too, and hence it’s a valid suggestion to have a dial-in-order service as well since your target is non-tech savvy housewives. To make a head start you have to look at options of augmenting the groceries purchase offering with more ease and comfort for the TG.

wishing you good luck once again !!
Tanutejas Saraswat March 19, 2013, 7:22 am

Hey Abhishek, Oops Abhi5hek 😉

Thank you for your feedback.. Done with the changes on About us page. Its left aligned now.

For a dial-in-order service, will implement it in very sooon…

Keep improving us.
asha chaudhry March 19, 2013, 9:00 am

tanutejas,

a bit of site critique now 🙂

the buttons at the bottom are really small – you have to look for the about us/contact us etc. i think they should be more visible.

when i click on your ‘about us’ – the page doesn’t invite me to read it. both sections look like they are from different sites (because diff font) – do add some images to appear to be more customer friendly…

and when your model is super successful in indore – pls come to goa 🙂
Tanutejas Saraswat March 19, 2013, 9:11 am

Changed the font. Now both are similar.

For visibility- Will try something else to make it more visible.

What If I remove this contact / about us from the bottom panel and increase the size of page and show all this info when a user scroll page down to the bottom?? Like we see in almost all sites? Should i go for that?

And for GOA- wow, I have never been there before. As you said when our model get super successful, I wish to organised some awesome party at Goa for all Rodinhooders. I so so wish this.
asha chaudhry March 19, 2013, 9:14 am

tanutejas – try and see what looks good.

p.s: i meant extend your e-grocery model to goa :)))))

party toh can happen in ANY CITY where rodinhooders meet up over coffee!
Tanutejas Saraswat March 19, 2013, 9:21 am

Ha ha ha. Sorry, In this super awesome working environment I am just finding reasons to party.:)

Will be there soon. Bless me!
Rashmirathi Tiwari March 19, 2013, 12:10 pm

Dear Tanutejas

All the very best for your Venture. Looking forward to order my first at ShopKirana soon.

I have a followup question though, being at Indore since few years, I understand that the majority of the middle/upper-middle class prefer Grocery stores nearby Rajbada over the likes of Stores@Malls.

And in my own personal experience, I feel that these shops are cheap compared to malls. It would be great if you can share your plans to target this group.

Thanks and great work indeed with the website.
Tanutejas Saraswat March 19, 2013, 12:37 pm

Hello Rashmirathi,

Thanks for your wishes.

Yeah we are pitching those groups. And making all those products available at very low price. Improving and updating products daily. Working on price everyday too to bring it down..

p.s. Waiting for the order from your side. 🙂
KARAN NAGPAL March 26, 2013, 11:07 am

I really like the wonderful concept..of online grocery .This idea is very much innovative , constructive and , will soon reach the minds of thousands of people .

I wish u guys a very good luck & my sincere thanks Rodinhoods
Tanutejas Saraswat March 26, 2013, 11:11 am

Thank you so much for your wishes Karan,

We also wish to spread the word in such a way that it reaches thousands of people SOON. 🙂

We are on it. Bless us!
Bhawana Sahu April 8, 2013, 10:42 am

I have had the opportunity to see how Indore grew from a tempo travel place to the galleria of malls. changing the user’s mind to not go to the limited places of visit and shop online the minimal needs of daily life like grocery is goina be a huge task which is a difficult one.

I personally worked in grooming one of our clients in Indore for digital marketing and to tell you the truth the grooming is difficult to sink in coz of the old school of thought in tier II cities.

However change is inevitable, so go ahead and be the leader in Indore.

All the best. I can see soon my brothers, uncles and aunties in Indore will sit at home and get their groceries at home.

Which has its own advantage for the households where the younger generation has shifted to metros for higher education and job and have left the elderly on their own.

So here I go liking your page and make it 119. Long way to go! Let me know if you require any kind of help.

Regards,

Bhawana ( smilingstart.com)
MOHAN BVS April 8, 2013, 1:00 pm
Hi Tanutejas

Today I came across your post, first of all congratulations and best of luck for your new venture.

After going thru your website, I have feedback for you. Since I have developed and helped in launching an online grocery delivery service LorvenMegaMart.com (https://www.lorvenmegamart.com/) here in Hyderabad, with the relevant experience in past, I am sharing my thoughts on ShopKirana.com.
1. Being a local only service, IMO there is no need to spend money on Google / FB Ads, but being the first of this kind of service in Indore you can hugely benefit from Google Search Results, for that you need to make your website Search Engine Friendly.
2. Implement SEF (Search Engine Friendly URL)
  ex: for Bajaj Almond Hair Oil your website link looks like
  https://www.shopkirana.com/inner.php?p_id=367&us=5419574871
  it should be something like https://www.shopkirana.com/product/bajaj-almond-drops-hair-oil-100-ml/
  same with other links like categories, brands etc.,
3. Use Unique Meta Title and description for each page typically Product Name+brand name etc., , otherwise Google will think all pages are same.
4. Use Google Analytics / Webmaster tools for optimizing your website further.
5. Focus more on offline marketing (minus local ads), ex: Meeting Association of an apartment / building society, distributing low cost flyers on weekends / first week of month etc.,
6. Invest good amount of money on a good hosting server. The website needs to be really fast.
7. Use Facebook Page for promoting in local circles and providing updates to your existing customers.
Hope you find this info useful

Wish you luck
Mohan
Founder
Santhra Technology Consulting
Tanutejas Saraswat April 13, 2013, 2:21 pm

Hello Bhawana,

First of all I apologize for replying so late.

I also feel the same that change is inevitable.

Before starting ShopKirana, we heard from every other person that this idea will not work because people are not habitual of online shopping and specially grocery.. Naaa..

But we didn’t listen. We just started. And personally i also feel that to change the behavior of people is a tough job but what if can manage to do so? That will be the day for us.

I wish to see your vision comes true soon ( I can see soon my brothers, uncles and aunties in Indore will sit at home and get their groceries at home ).

Thanks alot for liking the page and giving your time. :-))
Tanutejas Saraswat April 13, 2013, 2:26 pm

Thanks Mohan for your wishes.

I have noted down every single point which you mentioned and started working on them with my team.

Its my pleasure to get such kind of suggestions. It will going to help us in so many ways.

Please update me with your contact details, in case I need further advice, suggestions :))

Thanks alot.

Wish me luck again. 🙂
Ajay Pohekar April 15, 2013, 8:38 am

Hi! Tanutejas,

I too was working on similar idea but need to dropped in between for some obvious reason…. family to look after, EMI’s to pay, no backend support in any form, no source of income ….. and so on.

I am too happy to see you progress. I had some additional inputs for your business:

1. See if you can enable your neighbour KIRANA wala set up online shop. He can use your platform and backend business process support, against charging one fix monthly fees. I bet numbers and opportunities will be mind bogling.

2. Addup layer of analytic on consumption, I bet you will think of become distributor of some product in your area and still sale to the same kirana shops without competing them.

Ping me on +91 9967718199, I am based in Mumbai and have lot more to share on this.

All the best !!!

Regards,

Ajay Pohekar
asha chaudhry April 15, 2013, 9:33 am

wow ajay.

welcome back!

the comments on this thread are a goldmine!
Aneja Raj April 15, 2013, 8:25 pm

Love the cart functionality. How the product gets added.
Tanutejas Saraswat April 16, 2013, 5:18 am

Woooo. Thanks Ajay.

I am feeling like- I am in a deep ocean of knowledge and swimmers (Entrepreneurs) are pushing me forward to win this race. Thanks for a mind blowing inputs. Will call you very soon to get some more valuable advice.

I am really thankful. Keep pushing me, I will swim this ocean with you all. :))
Tanutejas Saraswat April 16, 2013, 5:24 am

Hey Aneja,

Finally someone noticed it :)) We gave our maximum time to develop this cart. We didn’t want to copy other carts so we did this . Still it has some flaws and improving it on a daily basis.
Ankur Srivastava April 16, 2013, 3:42 pm

great venture… congratulations…. 🙂 I went thru the website… on checkout page option “Address” and “Mobile No.” are not mandatory fields… I think these field shud be mandatory.. so that u can confirm order over phone.. look into this..!!
Tanutejas Saraswat April 24, 2013, 8:12 am

Ankur,

Thanks for finding it. We are correcting it. 🙂
Roshan Desarda April 24, 2013, 9:04 am

Best Luck for Shopkirana. I’m running a similar website http://www.punexpress.com in Pune.
Tanutejas Saraswat April 24, 2013, 9:37 am

Hey Roshan! Thanks mate.

I looked at http://www.puneexpress.com while developing ShopKirana. 🙂

I must admit you taught us many things through PuneExpress .
Roshan Desarda April 24, 2013, 9:42 am

Thanks Tanutejas.
Aneja Raj May 1, 2013, 11:57 pm

Congrats! The site looks Awesome. Looks like you have some neat SEO work done too.
Ratnakar Gokarn May 2, 2013, 3:14 am

Congrats on your startup and wishing you grand success.

Just one point, you might need to concentrate your marketing efforts locally rather than online only. Forget PR firms and go for some low budget guerrilla marketing.

All the best.
Tanutejas Saraswat May 2, 2013, 2:09 pm

:)) Looks like someone noticed our efforts
Tanutejas Saraswat May 2, 2013, 2:12 pm

Hi Ratnakar. Thanks for the feedback.

yeah we are concentrating local market more.. But didnt crack any WOW marketing technique yet .

Please share your views for the same. It will be very much beneficial for us.
Roshan Anand July 12, 2013, 4:39 am

Tanutejas, your website looks superb and simple to navigate. Someone has rightly pointed that the links are not SEO friendly, change it, it really helps a lot in coming on top of google search pages ..

One query – why is that the minimum order is of Rs. 300 when you are charging Rs. 25 for delivery charges for anything less than Rs. 500. I can see just one reason that you want to reduce the no. of delivery person but don’t you think that you can increase the delivery cost by Rs. 5 and cover the cost of having extra delivery person. Just wanted to know your thought process of not allowing any purchase less than Rs. 300.

Thanks.
Tanutejas Saraswat July 20, 2013, 8:08 am

Hey Roshan,

Minimum order is Rs 300 on our portal and we are selling groceries in which margin is very, very low and due to some inside business rules, we really cant allow people to buy less than Rs 300.

But if you are asking this question, so let me give you one crazy insight from shopkirana side ” In last 6 months, we rarely received order which is less than Rs 500. May be cuz people dont want to spend extra 25 bucks on deliveries, instead they prefer to make an order of Rs 500 because its a home needs store and to buy stuff for home, its so easy to cross Rs 500 bill..

p.s. If we start accepting orders less than 300 bucks, we will be in bad dark tunnel soon. cuz our current model doesn’t allow us to do this. 🙂

I am glad you noticed something very important.
Ashish Pratap Singh December 3, 2014, 11:49 am

Hey Tanutejas,

Starting an online grocery store in delhi, need to know what legalities i need to address before starting operations