Give the customers a great experience

Founded in August 2014, PepperTap established as a Hyperlocal service provider, in a short time, has chalked out its grocery route in Gurgaon, parts of Delhi NCR (Dwarka, Janakpuri, Ghaziabad, Greater Noida), and Pune. Funded by Sequoia and SAIF Partners, it is doing on an average 1,000 orders per day and racing ahead to deliver in just 2 hours’ time.   PepperTap Co-founder, Navneet Singh, in an animated conversation reveals to Retailer Media his tricks to win over a customer. In rare cases of service failure, go the extra mile, advises Navneet.

 

Where does Peppertap fit in the overall online grocery market scenario? 

We started our operations on November 26th 2014 and have grown from 10 orders a day to 1,000 orders a day since then.

 

Why did you choose this category? What opportunities did you see in this market?

We understand that there is a need of quick and convenient grocery delivery. Groceries are shopped for in every household almost every week and a visit to the local supermarket comes with a lot of pain points. Like waiting in long billing queues, driving and parking vehicles etc. Hyperlocal is going to be the next big shift in the eCommerce space and grocery is a hot category that can grab a major chunk of this prevalent market. On-demand fulfilment is in trend thanks to the proliferation of smartphone technology and escalating use of mobile applications.

 

Tell us more about your business and operations model?

The company's business model is unique to India and similar to Instacart in the US. It is a location-based platform wherein goods are procured from already tied-up supermarkets. This allows customers to see a specific catalog of their area based on their location (within a single zone of 3 km radius). We thus run a marketplace and do not hold any inventory.

 

What would you say are your achievements so far? What further initiatives/strategies have you planned?

We've recorded a consistent growth in terms of orders and ticket size from our customers. There are households who shop around 8-9 times in a month from us.

 

What is your trick to make a customer loyal to you?

On-demand delivery commitment and living up to it, ensuring that each product is carefully handpicked and is delivered absolutely fresh. The overall customer experience is what makes them stay with us. In rare cases of a service failure we go an extra mile to win over a customer by sending him/her goodies and customised PepperTap hampers.

 

Did at any point of time you feel that you were not making any headway? Please outline the challenges for you.

So far, there's been nothing stopping us. Like any other business, even we face a couple of challenges like - poor quality of systems and data in the target retail stores, regulated MRP (maximum retail price) which limits margins, and technophobic delivery staff are among the challenges PepperTap faces.

 

What would you recommend to other online grocery startups?

Giving the customers a great experience will count in the longer run and will help in sustainability.

 

What do investors look for while funding an online grocery biz? What investments have you made so far?

 

Investors' attention requires two important things:

How big is the market which the business is trying to target? Clearly, the grocery business is huge in that respect. 

Is the team executing the business plan good enough and dedicated enough to be able to execute on the plan? Given that we had already established NuvoEx, we had a good track record. We've raised about 11.2 Million USD from Sequoia and SAIF Partners so far in two rounds of funding.

 

How do you go about selecting local grocers? What terms and conditions are put for them?

We carefully select those local grocers who have a good width and depth of inventory with them. They are also the ones who usually sell most of their products much below the MRP's so that we are able to offer similar competitive prices to the customers.

 

What kind of infrastructure do you possess to strengthen your business?

We have invested well on our technology which makes the backbone of our operations.  Like any other online grocer, we do not hold any inventory and other assets like delivery bikes. Not investing on inventory helps us focus more on overall customer experience and strengthening out user interface.

 

Would you say you have won the online grocery delivery race and the customers?

Not yet.

 

What percentage of your customers are repeat ones?

On a week-on-week basis, our repeat orders vary between 40 to 55%.

 

What's your success mantra of 'How you did it'?

A good entrepreneur, with excellent execution skills, a great team, understanding the customer behaviour and need of the hour and a potentially big addressable market helped us reach where we are today.