The Previous Decade for India had a significant impact on consumer purchase behavior, where we saw the majority of the audience shifting to Ordering products, food, groceries, and every other product online rather than purchasing them offline from a retail store.
India also sees a surge in the adaption of smartphones than ever before.
India has over 1.2 Billion Mobile Phone Users: I&B Ministry ~ Live Mint.
Three main reasons brought this significant change in the purchase behavior of the consumer ;
- Convenience: At your fingertips, you can now order anything online, and it can be delivered to you within minutes, from a dark store, from fulfillment centers & in some cases, directly from the seller’s doorstep.
- Cost: Dark stores purchase Products In Volume and hence can provide better prices with jaw-dropping discounts; in the other scenario, food delivery apps provide great deals as a part of their promotion activity, and the user benefits from it.
- Catalogue: The ease of looking at a catalog of products that can be ordered online makes the consumer a sloth on a sofa, with the ease of browsing across millions of products globally.
We saw market leaders like Amazon enter Indian markets and make billions in revenue and grow its arm due to the population and the demand India has. We saw Brands like Zomato, Swiggy & Uber Eats Emerge and lead the Hyperlocal food delivery market. Not to ignore the billions of revenues from dark store apps like blinkit and Instamart.
It took 10+ Years & Billions worth of advertisements and investments to change this purchase behavior of the audience in India and make the end user trust online platforms to purchase products from.
Retail inflation resurged in July to hit 7.44% from 4.87% in June, with consumers facing a sharp 11.5% spike in food prices. ~ The Hindu.
These companies share a similar revenue model; most charge sellers commissions on orders through these platforms and commissions of up to 36%, depending on the product category. They Ask brands to advertise on their Platform and make a handsome amount out of the promotions done too.
There have been various incidents where we have seen and heard protests from Sellers and delivery boys working with such Platforms complaining about not being able to make enough money and are not happy with the percentage of commission they have to share from their business after working hard upon it. We have also seen FMCG / Grocery retail store owners complain about how dark store models are hurting the local markets in India & how bad business has been since the covid-19 pandemic.
The reason we understood all the above is so that we can understand what is the unseen issues that the daily user doesn’t see or realize and are faced by crores of retailers across India. The Revenue loss we face today in retail stores is unseen and Big in numbers.
In 2018, 6 Years From now, a 21-Year-Old Young entrepreneur, Harsh Sevani, Coming from the Indian Heritage City of Ahmedabad, Gujarat, Reported this as a significant problem statement and started his research with his team and succeeded in finding a solution and filed a patent for it.
Harsh Sevani, Has been a tech entrepreneur and an active startup investor. He started his journey at the age of 14 when he started working on various daily life problems he saw, like 2017 he launched an app with his former partner called the Maffat ( Free In Gujarati ) App: An app to help students get free photocopies and printouts through the power of advertisements. Maffat was his first successful app startup that was appreciated and granted by institutes like IIT Gandhinagar.
In early 2018, after Maffat’s Success, he saw another problem that was being faced by the world back then; he found a solution to the problem where he saw the youth distracted by Online Gaming, and he saw users spend precious hours of their day playing games and earning nothing out of it. He saw this as a problem and built an Esport platform where users could participate in tournaments and earn prize money and revenue from app advertisements. The Platform was called “King Tournaments,” after not even 2 months, the Platform got excellent traction with more than 2M+ Downloads and 1000+ Tournaments played Already.
Right after the Indian government ban on Online gaming apps in August 2018, Harsh Sevani saw the right time to exit the esports market as he already had his eyes on a more significant problem; he decided to sellout the Platform to an investor actively looking to grow its arm in the Esports space. Since then, till today, as we speak on the 77th Independence Day of India, he has been working on the same problem statement. He has successfully filed a patent for his idea, making him invent something that can be THE SMARTER CHOICE for Indian users, A better Alternative to live life, as he says.
Harsh Sevani says, “I have been solving problems based on the power of advertising, and one of the things that I have learned with all my ventures is that through the power of advertisement, one can make any services or products free. I love how brands have taught the users and evolved them by bringing safety & convenience to their minds while ordering anything online, and now I believe the time is here for a change. A change in the way we are ordering our products locally. A change in the way the sellers are being charged to sell online. A Change in the way we order from fulfillment or dark stores. This is what the market currently needs. It is not me who says this, but the number of revenues and the crores of retailers out there do & wish so.” He says with all the positive energy, “My idea will Definitely bring a revolution; by introducing Zippit, we are here to bring a change, a better alternative to live life and to make people aware about how we can order locally without paying any commissions or charges.” He continues with passion, “My vision is to make Zippit the biggest hyperlocal delivery search engine for India and its local stores, and I’m proud to be the inventor of it.”
Zippit: A Smarter Choice was launched back in 2019, formerly called as Letsbiz app, and the response of the retail market towards it was simply amazing. 1000+ Sellers from Ahmedabad onboarded the app within 2 Months of its official launch on 12th February 2021, and since then, Zippit has been the word of mouth of the town; Zippit is appreciated by various retail associations, leaders, and investors, has won multiple Startup Competitions and Today in 2023 after 6 Years of research, struggle, and patience the Platform was finally activated in its Home City of Ahmedabad with thousands of products and sellers. To be amazed, this Startup is entirely bootstrapped.
This will be a Big Move for India towards building its hyperlocal ecosystem, and harsh sevani plans to present this invention to the Indian Government and aims to be the only Platform used to order products online, hyper-locally. As we speak on 15th August 2023, Zippit is the only Platform not to charge any commissions or charges to its sellers and help the retail markets grow. Zippit is a promising invention and is expected to be the next big thing.
