One of the city’s oldest bakeries, Iyengars Bakery, now has an online store to deliver hot cakes and savouries to your doorstep.Launched this month, www.iyengarsbakery.com showcases the entire menu of the bakery: cakes, breads, cookies, snacks and sweets.
The online store has been getting a good response, says Lakshmeesha Iyengar, the 28-year-old co-owner of the bakery who is also active on social media. “People are on Facebook all the time these days. We figured an online store was the way to go. We got the website domain name registered when I was in college,” he says.
Lakshmeesha describes the online store as a work in progress. “There is a lot of tweaking to do. We’re planning to distribute fliers to let more people know about our online avatar,” he adds.
Started by H S Sridhara in 1981, Iyengars Bakery is now being run by second generation businessmen Lakshmeesha and Raman. Lakshmeesha, in charge of the technical and back-end operations of the shop, is an engineer, while Raman, who takes care of the front end, has an MBA from IIPM.
The brothers have chosen to stick to their family business rather than take up corporate jobs. Lakshmeesha says, “Even as a child, I used to sit in the bakery and watch my father manage the sales. My brother and I have always been committed to taking our family tradition forward.”
The entrepreneurs admit that an online store was a better idea than opening branches. “Over the years, a lot of our clientele have spread out to different areas in the city. There was demand for more branches, and we thought an online store that would deliver goods all over the city would be a much smarter option,” says Lakshmeesha.
Asked if the store would get a face-lift to match the freshness of the website, he says no.
“Our shop is located in a very humble neighbourhood. We still have people who buy half a pound of bread every day. An expensive makeover might scare away our regular customers,” he explains.
However, they are planning to expand to better localities once the e-commerce kicks in.
“One of the reasons we chose to go online was to eliminate human intervention from the trade. Different salespeople have different ideas and behavioural traits and we do not want that to affect our customers. We have high hopes for this endeavour. But for now, have to play the waiting game,” he signs off.