Deepak Upreti (L), Rohit Upreti (M), Zigyal Tshering (R)
One Click Shop may not be a unicorn but this e-commerce startup from Bhutan understands the industry better than any other tech giants out there.
The two-year-old firm, founded by brothers Deepak Upreti and Rohit Upreti and close family friend Zigyal Tshering, also seeks to stand out from the crowd with its novel business model.
“Unlike the traditional e-commerce marketplaces that allow users to sell their products online, we take the full charge of the entire process,” Rohit Upreti told e27.
This it means is that all the products (primarily FMCG goods) displayed on its platform are imported by the company from outside Bhutan. “A customer visiting our site simply needs to add products in their cart. We will then deliver them at their doorsteps,” he explained.
What makes the service stand out is that the startup has free delivery for all of its products no matter how low the price which even Amazon doesn’t do, Upreti quips.
But the challenges are plenty. One of the major challenges is the slow pace of shift of the customer mindset from the traditional means of shopping towards a more digital experience.
“Unlike people in other countries where tech is widely embraced, Bhutanese are still not willing to make the digital shift. Because of this, foreign as well as home-grown tech companies have failed to make a mark in the Kingdom,” he said.
“There is a push from the government to promote the tech ecosystem but the reality is that tech has not been successful here because it all comes down to how the market responds, the population and what the continuity of services is like. There was a boom of taxi apps like Ola but almost all of them are not functioning at scale because the market is not responding properly,” he said.
Also Read: 7 principles of intelligent personalisation
So how did One Click Shop go from catering to 200 households to 60,000 households within a short period?
Personalising the brand
According to Deepak Upreti, Bhutanese people are a close-knit society which tends to even remember the delivery boys/girls by their names, which is generally unheard of in the fast-paced 21st century.
Since personalisation is such an important part of the culture, One Click Shop decided to pivot its model from an app-based model to a web model and then to social media platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.
“Eighty per cent of our customers were ordering online through our website, not on our app. And once we went to meet them, they shifted from website to Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp. Downloading an app and using it is not how customers like to do it here, but they are more comfortable toward using websites or conducting a dialogue through social media,” he said.
Upreti has however added that it is not that people don’t understand tech or that the company is focused on an older population. It is just that people in this market like to do things traditionally and it is essential to establish a very personal relationship with the clients.
Crowdfunding
Aside from making sure that the company delivers a human touch along every step of the delivery process, One Click Shop managed to raise close to BTN$8.5 million (close to US$1,15,000) from the public population via a crowdfunding platform in Bhutan.
“We were the first startup in the country to put our shares into the market, and that’s how people got more connected to us,” he said.
While startups are not allowed to put their shares for public sales in the Kingdom, One Click Shop was an exception. Because, after its external auditing process, the company showed strong signs of profit after just 18 months of its inception.
Also Read: Meet the 15 Asian startups that will advance to Seedstars World Competition 2020
“We are constantly focused on moving towards the secondary stock market this year so that our share can be traded double the times. Our goal is to go IPO, and at the same time, we are also looking towards moving to export,” Upreti revealed.
Managing finances responsibly
The startup also raised an undisclosed amount of loan from the government which currently makes up 10 per cent of the entire business.
“We are strictly focused on doing business where we can get low investment and high returns. And that’s primarily how we increase our capital,” he said.
They were also the regional winners of Seedstars World Competition and will be entering its next phase where 10 startups will receive US$50,000 in the growth program investment as well as the chance to compete at the Grand Finale for a shot at the “Global Winner prize of US$500,000 in equity investment”.
Ramping up marketing strategies
As with any other country, savings are a big deal in any household, therefore the company regularly tends to provide people with savings deals, cashback policies and loyalty points that they would generally not find anywhere.
The company has also come up with several policies over the time being to get customers to shop with them.
For example, the company has a green policy, where they urge their customers to store their plastics until the next delivery after which the company helps them dump the plastic effectively.
Other than that the brand also has partnerships with many local influencers and celebrities to attract more clients.
“But even after everything we still see that there is another 50 per cent of the market yet to be captured but the rise in the growth of consumer is still going strong,” he shared.
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Image Credit: One Click Shop
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