Convenience at doorstep

Convenience is what a consumer today looks for. The same formula drives Deliveryoncall.com, launched in September 2011, it is a unique concept of delivering products of day to day needs at consumers' doorstep. Ankur Mehrotra, CEO, DeliveryOnCall.com, shares his views and plans in an interaction with Gunjan Piplani.

Gunjan Piplani (GP): What is the USP of the service?

Ankur Mehrotra (AM): Our USP is that all the household services are available under one roof, we not only generating orders, but we deliver them also, within the time lines stated by the consumer. We keep customers posted on the status of their orders.

GP: Which all brands have you tied up with? Which all service you provide?

AM: The Brands associated with us are Subway, Lets Noodle, US Pizza , SRS Value Bazar and many more.

GP: How are you promoting your website? What are the marketing initiatives?

 AM: We are promoting on Facebook, newspaper insertions and definitely when our bikes are moving in the city, our delivery boys are explaining the concept to consumer.

 GP: What have been the investments in the venture? Have you received any external funding or are you looking at one? Kindly elaborate.

 AM: We have not received any external funding in the venture and so we are looking out for the funding in the venture and in talks with few. The investments till now are from the own resources, and the approx range would be Rs 10 million.

 GP: Which locations are you targeting?  Who are your target audience? What is the current number of visitors and concrete members?

AM: We are presently operational in Noida and Indirapuram, and have plans to expand to NCR and other cities as well. Our target audience is every individual above age of 18, primarily working couples, housewives and old age people who find it difficult to move out often, for small requirements of the household. We presently have most of the consumers calling us on our call centre for placing their orders, the ratio of consumer ordering on phone and web portal is 70:30 , we believe that still in India a consumer prefers to order on phone than logging into the internet for placing orders for basic day to day requirements.

GP:  What are the margins that you work on with the service providers? How is the tie up done?

AM: Margins are quite tight as we are dealing into retail and sourcing everything from the consumers own retail market. As most of the vendors are already delivering and there is a cost associated to the delivery, we take that cost as our income , help them reduce their operational burden so that they can concentrate on their core business which is product and retail walk in customers. Where each vendor is using min 2-3 bikes for delivery and to a limited area of delivery, the fixed cost is very high. Deliveryoncall.com is working towards reducing the cost of delivery for the vendors, so that a retailer can increase its profit margins.

 GP: What are your expansion plans for the e-retail portal?

AM: We believe that every retailer is not available online; deliveryoncall.com is a portal which brings every retailer online, and gives them opportunity to showcase their product along with the delivery service for their product.

GP: What is an average ticket size?

AM: The average ticket size varies in different categories, e.g, in Food and Bakery section the average ticket is Rs.400 , in Grocery it is Rs.700.

 GP: What are your expectations in terms of revenues in the first year of operations?

AM:The revenues in the first year remain squeeze as this is a service portal and services can only be best if they grow gradually.