Anythingdelivered
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http://www.getitasap.com.au/sh
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http://www.getitasap.com.au/sh
From pickles and photocopies to movie tickets and medicines, a bunch of young men promise to deliver anything anywhere. K. Jeshi finds out more
Recently, the team at www.anythingdelivered.in re
Call it connectivity service or a third party service; the team at www.anythingdelivered.in, promises to do just that, deliver anything you order. Except liquor and tobacco. “During the IPL matches, we got calls asking for chips packets. It costs just Rs. 20 but people are willing to pay more (the delivery charges) so that they don't miss out on the thrills of the match,” Darshan smiles. To deliver food, they charge Rs. 60 for the first five kms and extra for every km from then on. The charges vary based on the product and the distance.
The idea for the enterprise came about when Darshan forgot his passport at home and had to miss his flight. “If only someone had delivered my passport to me…” he sighs. He bounced the idea to his friend Nishanthan. R, who liked it and along with another friend R. Gokul, fresh out of engineering college, the door delivery service became a reality. Already three months old, they have been growing rapidly all by word of mouth publicity. They get 40 calls a day and the number doubles during the weekends.
Form sending pickles to Erode, and shirts to Pollachi, to bouquets and chocolates to loved ones…they cater to a growing demand. Nishanthan, recalls how a woman called them at 8 a.m. and wanted print outs. We delivered them in 30 minutes (some 500 print outs) and she was thrilled. They also got a mixer repaired for another caller from Thondamuthur. College students in Peelamedu, and Vadavalli, medical college students, people on night duty and a chunk of the IT crowd order food regularly through them. Then, there are the romantics. “A person in Chennai uses our service regularly to send gifts to his girl friend in Coimbatore,” says Darshan. They deliver mid-night birthday cakes, and send a confirmatory SMS to the sender too.
As food orders are more in demand, they have partnered with about 17 restaurants such as Hari Bhavanam, Kovai Biriyani, Anandhas, Cream Centre and Village in the city. “When we started, it was a raw concept. But, the city warmed up to it. Now, we do menu management for the customers,” he adds. They also book cinema tickets.
Besides office goers, they get calls from elderly people asking for medicines. “We are also supplying fresh fish from Thoothukudi, an in-house speciality. If you want fresh fish, you will have to be up at 4 a.m. at the Ukkadam market. You could instead go for a jog while we do the dirty work for you,” he says.
They want to introduce laundry services, tailoring, temporary mobile inverter services (to cope with power shut down, healthy home food (right now, they take catering orders and give the callers the choice of two popular restaurants and a caterer they recommend), and offer pick up and drop car services, especially for people in Tirupur.
The next stop is e-commerce, to bring the retail outlets online. “The customers can see the products, place the order and we will deliver it. We want to start with popular ones such as baby products, electronic items, tailoring shops, 1gm jewellery and so on…” Gokul says. The 15-member team love their job.
Feedback on facebook and twitter has been bringing them a steady flow of customers. Soon, they want to enter Chennai, Bangalore, and tier II cities too. “Even if you want to buy an aeroplane, we can deliver it to you…that's the spirit of the team,” declares Darshan.
Open from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. on all days. Visit www.anythingdelivered.in
