Pakistani Startups are ‘Next Big Thing’ and we are seeing lot of new visionary people contributing to this landscape. Some of them are quite known faces in this space and some are totally new in this sphere. However, all are contributing to this startup ecosystem in many ways.
We came to know about an amazing journey of ALFABEE whose name was not there in Pakistan a year back. The founder and CEO Engineer Aamer Shehzad is an ex-overseas professional who has spent all his professional life in GCC where he has seen all such tech businesses progressing from inception till growth and ultimately to success. ALFABEE is a marketplace where people can buy all their household needs with few clicks on their smart phone without leaving their places. Such services do exist in GCC and founders wanted to bring such quality services to the motherland.
ALFABEE launched its operations in small but rich city of Mandi Bahauddin, Punjab, Pakistan in November 2020. They started the operations with grocery only and gradually added five further categories. They have 60+ vendors on board with operations in two cities. They have delivered 15k order in the first year and a GMV of 15M+.
They have partnered with Bank Alfalah for the secured online payments using Alfa Payment Gateway. Now ALFABEE is offering both COD and payments by credit/debit cards to their customers.
While talking to Mr. Aamer Shehzad, CEO of ALFABEE we asked what was his motive for starting it’s operations in a small city of Mandi Bahauddin. He replied, “This is my motherland and people of homeland deserve to have best quality services available elsewhere in the world.”
When we asked him that what benefit your business may provide to the people, he said a huge proportion of population of the area lives abroad in Europe, USA, GCC and their families are staying alone, some with minors and old parents. So, it is very difficult for them to ‘Go to market’ and buy daily needs. COVID-19 Pandemic has made it even more difficult and unsafe to leave the houses. Our mission is to facilitate the people of our homeland to the maximum level by delivering their daily needs at the doorstep. We are an affordable, reliable and quicker delivery service providing quality services to consumers. Our platform is also creating job opportunities for the local youth.
We asked him what is different in your business model, he replied our vision is to eventually include every household item on the platform ranging from groceries to the food, dairy to livestock, medicine, toys, clothing, electronics and many more thus providing our customers a single platform to buy all their needs. Further, keeping in mind the literacy rate of our area, we have provided option in the App to use in our National Language ‘Urdu’ and also are accepting orders by WhatsApp/calls. At the times we launched, it was first such App having real Urdu language option instead of roman Urdu. This shows our love and affection for our homeland and National Assets.
We asked him what he sees as a potential driver for the success of Alfabee, he said, our hybrid model, with own super store for all grocery items and best customer service which brought success to our business. People can order online anything in the city, from our store, our vendors shops or restaurants at a very low cost and to get delivery immediately within minutes at their doorstep and that is very powerful. We know by improving the customer experience and offering a wider range of household items and food from their favorite restaurants, would be quite attractive. Our aim is to make any store, product and restaurant available/ accessible in the city immediately, at a very competitive price and round the clock 7 days a week.
We asked about his expansion plans, he replied we are already operating in two cities and planning to launch in the third city in the first quarter of 2022. We also have aggressive plans to increase inventory of our own super store. The option to license franchises is also on the table and the discussions are underway with many interested parties.
We asked him about the challenge he is facing, he said changing mindset of the people from “walkthrough’ purchasing to the online ordering is the most challenging part of this business in such remote areas.
Below are links to our apps and website:
alfaBee on the App Store (apple.com)
