Aaramshop

AaramShop is an Indian start-up, which has pioneered the concept of hybrid commerce, which allows customers to shop at local neighborhood stores (kirana & "pharmacies") via the internet.

History

Vijay Singh founded AaramShop in 2011. Originally serving 162 local shops in Delhi, the company set a goal of expanding to 2000 shops by the end of that year. AaramShop is a free to use platform for small independent retailers who get to have a web-front to their physical store and also get an assisted call interface backend. The hybrid retailing concept leverages on the strengths of the retailers who home deliver to customers within the immediate vicinity of the store.

AaramShop helps the small neighborhood retailers grow their businesses without needing to undertake additional investments.

Business model

Customers create a shopping list for groceries. via AaramShop's website or Facebook, and the company then use SMS and e-mail to direct the order to the customer's local store. It has provided many small retail outlets with an online presence for the first time. The company's focus is on low value, high turnover consumer goods such as daily groceries. The service follows a freemium model. Unlike competitors such as BigBasket.com, Aaramshop's reliance on local stores to provide and deliver orders to its customers allows for low staffing costs (it has only 12 employees) and overheads.