Rajni Gupta on TwentyOff's Disruptive Business Model
Rajni Gupta does online grocery deliveries. Although they have an established delivery service, she likes to do a few personal deliveries every week. Unlike most delivery personnel, this Co-Founder of e-commerce platform TwentyOff spends a lot of time explaining to people not to feel bad about having their items personally delivered. Her eyes widen as she laughs, recounting the typical experiences with her friend-turned-customers. "I always tell them not to feel bad or reluctant to order, because personal deliveries are truly the best part of our job. It is through these human interactions where we get a better understanding of our customers, and would come in especially handy when TwentyOff starts scaling up."
Launched in early October this year, TwentyOff is a Singaporean-based startup aiming to be the top online grocery shopping platform - the only one, mind you, to boast a low-cost discount model amidst Singapore's booming 5 billion dollar grocery industry; a mere 10% of which even provide online grocery services. Cue TwentyOff. How they work is simple enough to understand: The more you buy, the greater discounts you receive, with a maximum of 20% off your total grocery haul. Despite needing to personally shop for each and every order, at this stage, since their own warehouse is still being set-up; all that really matters to Rajni, and her Co-Founder Vishal, is the learnings and insights they get from this phase of their start-up while building a set of delighted evangelists who can help spread the good word.
It doesn't seem to bother her that her startup isn't currently making any money. In fact, she views these monetary losses as a good thing. "It's the price to pay when you are still experimenting to build the world's first online discounter business model like TwentyOff is. We believe in this model, and to us, it's a small loss compared to the big gains to be had later on," she elaborates. "Sure, we're paying for this from our own pockets, but when our warehouse is operational, it will start making money. We will be the worlds first grocery e-commerce model that not only immensely benefits the users with more savings but can also make money due to the lean cost model. Happy customers and a business that is profitable in the long run is all that matters."
Currently working on raising awareness to increase their mass of online users, Rajni has technology integration in the pipeline for TwentyOff. Keen on eventually incorporating a chatbot service on their site, this would allow TwentyOff's to answer user queries in real-time. This not only fosters a greater sense of customer trust, but also provides them with a whole new level of service.
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HOW TWENTYOFF STARTED
I used to be one of those people who constantly clipped coupons and always on the lookout for grocery discounts and vouchers. Vishal and I then started brainstorming on the ways that we could offer the public bigger discounts because we understand the pain of living in such an expensive city. Everyone wants to save money, and through TwentyOff, these savings can make a tremendous impact on your monthly expenses!
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TWENTYOFF DEALS IN NON-PERISHABLES
People in general tend to purchase items that they need and are likely to use for the rest of their lives. This includes non-perishable products such as soaps, sanitary products, canned food, tissues etc! Therefore TwentyOff curates a healthy range of 6000-7000 products, as compared to typical grocery e-commerce sites featuring 30'000-40'000 products, providing our users with the freedom of choice without bombarding them too many confusing options. It's important to strike the right balance.
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TWENTYOFF IS THE PERFECT BUSINESS MODEL FOR SINGAPOREAN MILLENNIALS
We have realised a trend amongst millennials; they are very much in the habit of 'testing' products, specially the more environmentally friendly ones. There are many people who only want organic products - Which aren't cheap in Singapore! So for people thinking of switching to organic products, or testing out these new products, using TwentyOff is the perfect solution. It used to be painful price points that deterred shoppers from testing new natural and environmentally friendly products, but TwentyOff makes the world their oyster!
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UNDERSTANDING YOUR DEMOGRAPHIC IS VERY IMPORTANT
Take for example the cash and cheque on delivery option that we've provided on TwentyOff. We realised that this wasn't an option provided by most sites, and was puzzled by this because it was the easiest way to appeal to both millennials as well as the older generation in Singapore! Millennials have no qualms about putting their debit and credit card information online, but it's tricky for the older generation to do the same as they view online payments as unsafe and distrustful. Understanding your demographic is just as important as the product or service you're trying to sell.