+1, hopefully we can make that happen.
56 karma · joined November 8, 2013
And insurance works just fine in Bangladesh once you figure out the claims process.
1. Inventory management is very poor in the retail stores around Dhaka. Most (95%) of them are very small (carrying ~500 SKUs), and even the larger ones have difficulty in ensuring supply of all products. We found that people would get annoyed if we couldn't send them all the products they asked for (98% fulfillment rate was not good enough).
2. The prices don't work if you are a layer on top of the existing infrastructure. People are a lot more price sensitive -- in fact, irrationally so. They care about getting a "bargain" rather than the mathematical value of the bargain. SO we couldn't survive by taking a mark up on products like instacart.
3. Part-time work is non existent and we couldn't trust the quality of the workforce in an on demand model. We have to train people to understand the difference between mayonnaise and mustard.
4. Some Indian startups have gotten around the idea of on-demand workforce by just hiring all their deliverymen full-time. Their unit economics should be pretty tough.
5. The warehouses are optimized for picking and dispatch. Real Estate prices are expensive. We should be seeing much better revenue per square feet than regular grocery stores.
* We will be maintaining warehouses in every single area. We currently have 2 but plan to have 9 to cover the entire city. That is the only way to ensure 1 hr delivery. We are also offering this service for products which are fast moving (around 1500 SKUS). Slower moving products are sent from the main warehouse.
* We will need a bit of capital, but not as much as most people think, it costs us around $230k to start a warehouse and run it for six months. It is a lot cheaper than starting a departmental store in Dhaka, and you get far more efficiency per sq. ft as you are not optimizing for a "browse experience" for shoppers. Our shoppers are our employees and we can control their movement for maximum output/sq. ft. Theory is departmental stores can survive, so can 7000 sq. ft. warehouses.
* I don't see why accountability and management challenges should be any different in BD than it is in the US. Enough startups have thrived in India and China.
* Bangladesh also has a decent history of foreign investments with companies like Telenor and Microsoft managing local offices. So corporate accountability does exist in the country.
We have our own warehouses. Our workers are full time.