When these three socially-committed youth got together to form Palacharakku.com, a local version of Flipkart wherein groceries and provisions are delivered at your door steps, they absolutely had no idea of the overwhelming response awaiting the venture.
Engineering graduates’ Abin Peter, Sivakumar Chandran and Joel Ben Gabriel may be your typical boys-next-door, but their initiative is definitely worth attending to, or so proves the immense response they receive.
And, their efforts doesn’t end there.Palacharakku.com will launch a batteryoperated cart to deliver groceries at your home in Kochi and nearby areas.
“The pollution-free battery operated delivery system is a part of our initiative to contribute towards environmental issues. Such vehicles are common in Delhi malls,” says Abin Peter. The vehicle will be launched in a week, Abin says and adds that it is being sponsored by a person who doesn’t want to reveal his identity.Palacharakku.com was launched in September 2012 by Food and Civil Supplies Minister Anoop Jacob in Kochi.
According to them, the website was established aiming to address the social cause of unemployment. ”When we launched the venture, its commercial side was not in our minds. We aimed to provide jobs to a few people and address environmental issues to an extend, something like ‘orderpooling’. But the response we got was so overwhelming that we now plan to expand it,” Abin says.
According to Abin, the venture is not profitable yet. “As of now, we are not focused on the profit side. But we know that the project has the potential to make money. We charge `30 as surcharge and the bill we provide is supplied by the supermarket that we have tied up with,” says Abin. Though it is just a few months after the launch of the venture, the client list is growing each day.
“Currently, we have almost 90 customers. Though we have a website to order provisions, major sales take place over phone,” says Abin. The transportation is mainly using a bicycle and the payment is cash on delivery.
Abin says that there are no marketing tactics for Palacharakku.com as such. “Our publicity is mainly word-of-mouth.
A person who subscribe to us tells about our service to at least four to five people. Other than this, we have no such publicity campaigns as such as we don’t think of the venture as a pure commercial initiative.
Actually, resources for the ventures comes from our pocket,” says Abin who is a software professional at an IT firm in Kochi