MY ROLE

Being a member of the founding team, I had to wear multiple hats. I led the growth marketing & business strategy efforts for the team.

MARKET RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS

As we kicked off the project, I started with deep research on the HORECA segment in the New Delhi region. Gathering data from reputed research firms like Gartner, Trans Stellar was a real eye-opener. I took down every possible granular data point to get a clear picture of the consumer and consumption cycle in the Delhi market. The bridge between e-commerce giants and brick&mortar was too rigid to fall apart easily. I followed an inspired hybrid approach from the 4Ps ( product, pricing, promotion, place ) and 3Cs framework ( customer, competition, company ) for putting together the strategies.

An example of the research paper I worked on is attached below

CUSTOMER NEEDS

The research data provided in-depth reasoning behind the consumer’s trust in local vendors despite the existence of e-commerce. The biggest challenges like last-mile delivery unit economics and same-hour/day delivery were too big to be solved on local Indian streets.

The very basic behavioral needs like a quick craving for ice cream, a cookie jar, or just a coke are some of the examples that no e-commerce was catering to. Every major player in the business wanted to play big on order value. That’s the reason the local Kirana ( Grocery ) vendors were unbeatable in this segment of fulfilling the small but essential needs of customers in their daily routine. We found our sweet spot to target and build our own market around this hyperlocal space.

On top of that, The mandi vendors are unbeatable when it comes to pricing and freshness of fruits & vegetables. That factor posed a big challenge to players like BigBasket and Grofers. Customers from the Urban Delhi segment are busy with their job and house chores. So mostly they have to rely on housemaids or themselves for any such spontaneous needs. Giving the opportunity to get the freshest goods delivered to your doorstep without any delivery cost did a dream come true for any consumer and is too hard to believe. We anticipated a big opportunity here and took action on it.

The smart cart value made it impossible even for many local vendors to provide doorstep services. But it didn’t hide the fact that there’s a big market underlying it. Imagine yourself living in a 15-floor building that has to come down, go to the shop, and again go 15 floors up just for a pack of chips or an energy drink. Frustrating right? To leave all your important office work for just one snack!

VENDOR LIAISING

On the other face of our business, The street shopkeepers and vendors were the next important puzzle to solve. Based on the research data we gathered, I put a strategy forward to target a particular developed urban zone of New Delhi called Dwarka. It seemed quite fit to build and test what we wanted to. Now was the right time to go out in the sun and talk real business with people in the market.

I started approaching the major shop owners in the key markets of Dwarka. The street smart inputs gained from these vendors laid the foundation for our business strategic efforts. Some of these vendors were already trying to deliver the goods through their in-house staff. Though it was faster than Grofers and Bigbasket it was still hindered by cart value or order size. This was a hint to a possible breakthrough opportunity for someone who can crack the unit economics for these last-mile deliveries for such vendors.

CUSTOMER ACQUISITION

Instead of going on our own and investing a hefty amount of effort, We partnered with many leading vendors in that area to handle its delivery ops in exchange for a discount in goods pricing and a fixed fee on every single order delivered. This tactic was put together to get hold of high potential consumer zones and door-to-door marketing through a first-hand delivery experience for the customer.

The deal was made between many areas like chemists, stationaries, confectioneries, and grocery vendors. The orders were to be received on-call/WhatsApp only for the time being. Either the vendor could pass on their orders to us or we were able to receive orders directly from our customer care executives ( who was a founding team member ).

In return, Our branding and market presence was being showcased at those outlets. At the same time, Our team used to pay market visits in evening times asking locals about this problem and offering them a solution from our side. This was a very effective but slow way of getting things done in the beginning. Brochures/pamphlets were handed over to people in mass gatherings.

ROADMAP STRATEGY

All pieces were now set for me to move my pen on paper to lay out the roadmap and strategic solutions to kickstart this journey. I created issue trees for all the operations from the customer to the delivery executive. Each granular data point was to be taken care of and recorded for the sake of KPIs.

The idea was to get hold of every touchpoint of the business which would directly impact the consumer. It was all about the customer experience in the beginning. For that reason, The framework needed to be very much MECE ( mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive ).

The Pricing Strategy

A much important aspect was the delivery pricing. Although, the very idea was to keep the delivery fee 10 bucks for any order. But exceptions were there depending upon the size and weight of the order as well, Which couldn’t be delivered from a single bike. I came up with the following pricing model after wrapping the maths around my fingertips :)

BUSINESS OPERATIONS

Things started moving at this stage. Orders were being placed, delivered, delayed and mismatched. A lot was happening at any time of the day.

THE CRUX: DATA

At the end of every week/month, It was time to raise funds for the venture. The data collected so far was about to be put to test. I was managing all of it in a predefined layout for the structured dataset. The tiniest of the details were recorded to measure the impact we created against the existing every major vendor individually.

The PIVOT

It was a volume game that we were reaching slowly. To crack the unit economics per order the order numbers or value had to be raised. It is the exact same thing that forced Bigbasket and Grofers to dive into their in-house production to cut costs. The cost margin from other brands is not enough to beat the last-mile delivery challenges in the Indian market at least for now.

I won’t be dragging this out any longer. This was such a roller coaster ride that a typical startup has to offer. But the lack of funds hindered the growth which was very much needed in this venture. It was a hard time too for the logistics market during 2018-19. This made the team pivot from the original idea and we moved into payment solutions.

I’ll post the journey to the new venture very soon! Meanwhile, Here’s the live project link.