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Now, just click to buy groceries around the world
By siliconindia
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Friday, 08 January 2010, 22:02 IST
1000 and the delivery time is two days.
Ecityindia.com is the brainchild of Arun Sundaram, a techie who once worked with the software firm Enteg. He says, "There were many reasons that prompted me to start the site. One among them being the long queues. Another important reason was to enable people to place orders sitting at home."
On offer are Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) like canned food, biscuits, aerated drinks, electronic items like Coffee Makers, Computer Stationery, and more. However, perishable items like fruits, vegetables, eggs, meat and the like, are not sold by the website as it requires two days to deliver the goods. All products are stocked in a store in Yeshwanthpur, where a team of three people work. Delivery of products at the doorsteps has been outsourced to a logistics team.
Sundaram explains, "We buy products in bulk from a number of suppliers, and we sell the products at a price that's two percent more than the maximum retail price. This increase also includes the transportation cost and that's where we make our profit."
He got the idea for ecityindia.com from a funny experience at home. When he worked for Enteg as Project Manager, he used to travel across the country and found little time to shop for groceries for his mother. To teach him and his brother a lesson, his mother kept both of them hungry for an entire day saying there were no groceries at home. "That's when I realized that there might be a number of people who face the same problem," he says.
According to Sundaram, a majority of his 50,000 customers lives abroad. He recalls a recent instance where a Bangalorean, who had gone to Singapore for a short visit, used the site to place orders for his wife, so that she did not have to venture out for shopping.
Sundaram says that this model of entrepreneurship is completely trial-and-error based and he had to invest 5 lakh on it. The site ensures that the email IDs provided during registration are authentic. He explains, "We don't entertain faulty emails. When we get a registration request we send the applicant an email which has the link to our site. Only when the user clicks on the link for authentication, items on the site will be visible."
