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Falphool.com – can this startup survive, where biggies perished?

By Sunil Suri on 27 Comments / 5363 views

Hi All,

I’ve been a member of this wonderful community at TRH for the last 3 weeks. I really admire the community and the see the talent galore on this platform. I’d take this opportunity to introduce my startup Falphool.com.

About Falphool.com

Falphool.com is an ecommerce company focused on solving the problem of delivering fresh fruits, vegetables and grocery at GUARANTEED affordable price at your doorsteps. Now with Falphool YOU

a) Don’t need to pay 3 times for fresh fruits and vegetables delivered at your doorsteps.
b) Don’t need to travel to weekly market(and search for parking space before buying).
c) Don’t need to carry the heavy bag full of fruits and vegetables and roam around to get the best deal.
d) Don’t need to bargain at local shops.
e) Don’t need to go out on hot and humid days or rainy days or in shivering temperature.
f)  Don’t need to worry for the things you’ve missed in your list.

Pass all the above worries to Falphool.com, we will take care of the above and you enjoy that time with your family and friends.

Currently we are serving in Dwarka, New Delhi only. 

How it all Started ?

On June 12th 2015, I’ve was having a routine telephonic conversation with my boss and during the course of chit-chat I told him that I’m now more interested in setting up an e-commerce store, I want to sell vegetables, fruits and grocery. This after knowing that most of the startups related to fruits, vegetables have failed and failed miserably. Some of the sites have perished(I take pride in holding to some of those domains). And to my utter surprise he readily agreed.

He didn’t ask for any project plan/projections/revenue etc. On 15th June 2015, I prepared one of the report in EXCEL showing him some of the initial set up cost and very conservative projections for the next few months (July/Aug/Sep).  

Without wasting any further time I booked the domain (Falphool.com) , developed the site in 2 days. I used CMS to develop the site as I don’t want to write the code from the scratch (even though I’d have love to get it done in ASP.NET and SQL Server). I’d rewrite it in Microsoft technologies in next few months.

We launched beta on June 22nd 2015.and released the final version on July 1st 2015.

What and how we did ?

During this period we learnt a lot, we washed fruits and vegetables, did packaging (learnt how to package to make it look good), and delivered in Dwarka in our own vehicles, and did everything possible.

For marketing, we did some newspaper inserts and we started getting orders. By 2nd week of July we had 100 customers (with 6000 newspapers inserts). We started doing newspaper inserts regularly and we could see surge in orders.

Till date I haven’t hired anyone for this NEW LAUNCH. Since we already have a team of 30 which comprises of Developers/Data processing Team members/software trainees and some operations staff, I tried to develop a methodology of optimum resource utilization for the current team. Some of these members (who were under utilized) agreed to do Purchase/Packaging and delivery for this project by working extra hrs. They all agreed in unison for the nominal compensation(that was the icing on the cake). 

I started using 12 members of the team for the above mentioned processes without our current projects getting disturbed. Every team member shared my passion so it became very easy for me. And at the same None of us were having the background of selling fruits and vegetables, so first week became the learning week for us. We went to vegetable Mandi did surveys there, brought fruits and vegetables. We got 10 orders from our other team members on DAY 1. and we were quite happy. There was no wastage as we were buying based on orders. So on DAY 1 we delivered 10 orders. This process continued for next 9 days and during that time we all learnt a lot. 

Where we stand ?

We are delivering 30-40 orders daily with the average ticket size of Rs 250/-, this taking into account we are a month old venture.

How users can order ?

Users can order online, through phone and through whatsapp.

Our Future plans.

We plan to improve the customer satisfaction through innovative ideas.
We plan to go global with our natural and organic food category.

My Background

I’ve been into software development for the last 15+ yrs. I still write code and prefer to do POCS. I’ve worked with Escorts and HCL. Currently working with VSK Technologies Pvt Ltd as Director.
Now more interested in enhancing customer experience.

My Thanks

Thanking you in advance for reading this out and would love to hear from you. Kindly be soft on us as we are very new to all this.

~Sunil Suri

Follow us on Social Media: facebook

@falphool

P.S – My Special thanks to Abhik who gave us brilliant ideas to work upon through ASK  ABHIK. 

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27 Comments

  1. hi sunil,

    awesome story! just love the name Falphool 🙂 we really need someone like you in goa 🙂

    we have quite a few rodinhooders who have posted about veggies and groceries ecom. pls use the search engine and you will be able to locate all the articles. 

    you might want to connect with tanutejas of shopkirana for more insights. 

    also pls check ASK SANGRAM – he’s a foodpreneur who has started Pesfresh from ground zero. he will be more than happy to help you with any queries. 

    all the best. see you on the 22nd!

    ps: pls add your twitter handle at the end so i can mention it while promoting your post.

  2. Thank you so much ASHA Madam for all you did, and for making this community so lively.

    I’ll definitely be in touch with tanutejas and Sangram.

    Will be there in Gurgaon on 22nd and will be an honor to meet you.

    Twitter handle : #falphool

    Thanks & Regards

    Sunil Suri 

  3. 🙂 you must call me asha!

    i’ve followed @falphool. will add it on your post as well. 

    we’re having a #foodtech panel at the open house. so feel free ask some q’s to the panelists!

  4. Congrats Sunil..  The name Falphool is cool.. 🙂
    The website also looks nice. A mobile app will be very useful for daily ordering of vegetables.

    Some idea on top of my head – 

    On the app, you can give an option of saving the list of most common items people usually purchase (like onions, tomato, green chilli etc) So people can save their lists with different names and later with One Tap can order the list saving lots of time. 

    2nd thing you can include is addition of exotic vegetables like baby corn, boroccoli which is usually not available in local vegetable stores but only in some malls. It can be a unique advantage.

    Good luck.. 🙂

  5. Thank you so much Mubaid. It is real pleasure connecting with you through this platform and taking your timeout and reading this.

    We are in the process of development of Android App.

    Amazing and brilliant idea of the list, I’ll be noting this in my To-Do-List(How come I couldn’t think about this? ).

    Regarding exotic vegetable, we are already providing baby corn and brocolli in our vegetable segment.

    Here is the link for the same: https://falphool.com/product/baby-cornpkt/.

    I thank you for your valuable feedback and inputs.Please keep that going.

    Thanks & Regards

    ~Sunil Suri

  6. That’s great.. 🙂
    I will surely send more ideas if I get any.

    Wish you all the success. Let’s stay in touch

  7. Thank you so much once again. I will be in constant touch with you.

    Sunil

  8. Hi Sunil

    Cost what I saw on your website is really tempting to buy though I am in Mumbai.

    In future, you may provide vegetables or fruits as per the recipe. Now a days, even my family lookout if someone can give us all the veggie at one place for particular food to cook.

    Best of luck.

    Cheers

  9. Manish, thank you for taking your time out and giving your valuable 
    feedback.The idea appears to be great, i will surely work on its execution.

    Please keep giving your valuable feedback from time to time, much appreciated.

    Thanks & regards

    Sunil Suri

  10. Hi Sunil, 

    You can also consider the following feature: 

    People can give a standing instruction to get a set of basic vegetables (onions, potatoes, tomatoes, ginger, garlic, etc) delivered every x number of days (I’d put 3 or 4 days). In this case, one need not place an order every few days but seamlessly get the basic stuff (which of course can be modified) from time to time and get charged either post every order or weekly or via a prepaid balance. I also own the domain http://www.subji.in so do let me know if you or anyone you know might be interested in taking it (at no extra cost). 

    Good Luck to Falphool!

  11. Hi Arpit,

    Thank you so much for your valuable feedback and for suggesting new feature. You’ve given a new dimension to what Mubaid had already suggested. I’ve included this in my TO-DO-List.

    Please do give me the price of the domain.

    Thank you once again. Please do keep giving the suggestions, much appreciated.

    Thanks & Regards

    Sunil Suri 

  12. Hi Sunil, 

    You’re most welcome! You can contact me on arpitc0707@gmail.com or on 9953666710 and we can take the domain transfer forward! 

    Thanks. 

  13. Hi Arpit,

    Will call you tomorrow, please do let me know if it convenient for you.

    Thanks & Regards

    Sunil Suri

  14. Sure, feel free to call anytime! 

  15. The biggest challenge I yet see no one to have solved is ‘Credit’. In-complex stores builds a relationship and residents and also gives credit to pay in a couple of days. This is something that needs to be addressed and implemented.
    My 2 cents.

  16. Hi Imran,

    Nice thought I would say, but we need to see the viability at this stage as well.

    Our tagline “quality at Guaranteed affordable pricing” is something which we are currently focusing on.

    Thanks for your feedback.

    Thanks & Regards

    Sunil Suri

  17. hey sunil,

    alok shared your post on his fb y’day. there are quite a few comments there. do check.

  18. Thank you so much Asha for all you’ve been doing.

    Thanks & Regards

    Sunil Suri

  19. This is why I love being on the field always. The other day I was on a KHOPCHA delivery to Pink Appt, Sec-18B, DWARKA when I saw a “FALPHOOL” flyer affixed at door handle of a house. Took it; Read it; took a snap for further reference  thinking of trying them once & finished my delivery NOT REALISING THAT I WOULD BE READING ABOUT “FALPHOOL” today here.

    AWESOME.

    SMALL WORLD. INSTANT CONNECTION. 

    No suggestions as of now but a number #8130448822 & an assurance to be of help any hour of the day for whatsoever in Dwarka.

    It could be anything:

    1) Dwarka Demography : List of all CGHS , Most sort after Societies etc..
    3) Flyer Printings ( at far less than what you might be paying now); Distribution Center to reach 100% Dwarka.
    2) Best Advertisement options specific to Dwarka & their vendors contact details.
    4) Licences / MCD Approvals / Local Police help.
    5) Contact details of emergency vegetable vendors (order placed but not in ur inventory)
    6) What all can you do for the perishable items not sold. 
    6) How about getting a list of more than 20k primary data of people residing in Dwarka ( only & only because u r a Rodinhooder )
    7) Get connected to local publications & online forums in Dwarka ; Contact persons of almost all online hyper local aggregators operating in Dwarka.
    8)  etc etc etc etc ….. …. ….. call me at anytime.

    All in all what I have learned in 4 years( Dwarka specific) can be downloaded to you in 4 mins so YOU don’t have to invent the wheel all over again. All this because we are part of this AWESOME COMMUNITY CALLED “THERODINHOODS”. The invisible thread which binds us all is SHARE, SHARE & SHARE.

    All the Very Best.

    Rajeev 

    (PS : In case you forgot to click above Click HERE to know more about KHOPCHA

  20. Hi Sunil,

    I have one quick question – how is Falphool different from the existing players like BigBasket, Grofers, etc. I do not mean to pour cold water on your idea but just trying to understand what other tricks you have under your sleeve. As a customer I am pleased with the plethora of alternatives but from a business point of view how sustainable is the business. Like you said, this space is quite crowded and the trend seems to be similar to e-commerce sites/taxi aggregators. VCs are picking their favourite horses and pumping money in. Everyone is spending money hoping to be the last man standing and go home with the big bucks. 

  21. Hi Sridhar,

    Thank you so much for reading about FALPHOOL.COM.
    We are quite different biggies and will remain so. Coming on to the difference between biggies and Falphool:

    1. We are not backed by any VC.
    2. Our focus is “delivering quality at the affordable pricing”. Check our rates and you won’t be disappointed.

    3. We don’t promise 2hrs delivery(we won’t do that in near future as well), we deliver in slots(morning orders in the noon and noon orders next day). That helps in planning and we pass on the incentive to our customers who orders in noon. Currently we are offering POTATO at the rate of Rs 1(this is one time).

    4. We don’t believe in conventional things.

    5. This business is pure quantity game, margins are quite less, but important thing which we’ve learned that people are ready to pay for QUALITY and SERVICE.

    6.If you could see one of the comment by Rajeev, how and where he saw our flyer, you would feel that FALPHOOL stands for unconventional things.

    I will keep on updating the various things which we have been doing, Kindly stay tuned.

    Thanks & regards
    Sunil Suri

  22. Hi Rajeev,

    Will be calling you tomorrow, please do let me know if it is convenient for you.

    Thanks & Regards

    Sunil Suri

  23. hey rajeev,

    you coming for the OH on aug 22nd naa?! milna mujhe!! and pls bring a khopcha takeaway 🙂

  24. Hi Ma’m,

    Cant afford to miss it …. 

    Will be there for sure !

    Thks

  25. I am really very excited to see so much of energy and momentum  in entrepreneurial ventures in India.

    Good work, Sunil! Are these fruits organic? If not, then you should start selling organic. I wanted to get into this space but dropped the idea. Best of luck!

    Thanks, 

    Ketan

  26. Thank you Ketan. We’ve not started selling organic fruits, vegetables & grocery yet. But we are planning to do so.

    Thanks

    ~Sunil Suri

  27. HI Rajeev,

    It was great talking to you. Hope we could meet some day.

    ~Sunil Suri

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