#old e rickshaw price in delhi

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Mac Auto Electric 3 Wheeler – E-Rickshaw & E Cart Committed in taking concrete steps towards building a clean last mile, Mac Auto take pride in presenting Mac E-Rickshaw through it’s Electric Mobility Subsidiary – Mego. Mac Auto Vehicles, a wholly-owned electric mobility subsidiary of Mac Auto., undertook the acquisition of Faridabad based E-3Wheeler company

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TRIP TO OLD DELHI

Rarely seen anywhere else, the streets of Old Delhi have their own charm. Just take a walk down the winding lanes of Old Delhi and you’ll frequently come across sights like a cycle rickshaw parked in front of an antique gate, a woman gazing through a jharokha or a huge haveli-styled building aglow in the early morning sun giving  you a deeper insight into the typical lifestyle of Old Delhi.

In 1639, Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan decided to shift his capital from Agra. After much research and deliberation, his astrologers and architects decided on Delhi as the site of this ambitious project. The capital that took shape in the following years has been revered as one of the greatest planned cities in the history of the world. Named as Shahjahanabad at the time of the Mughals, it was later rechristened Old Delhi by the British. 

Over 350 years have passed, but this section of Delhi still retains an old-world charm, making it one of the most-visited areas in the city. So, for a glimpse into the city’s glorious history, plan a trip to Old Delhi and enjoy all the delights it has to offer.

Discover a Sense of Awe

One of the most iconic structures that the world knows Delhi and India by, is the majestic Red Fort. As one enters Old Delhi and treads along to find themselves standing across the robust yet sublime red outer walls of the fort, a combined sense of pride and wonder grace one’s features. Every step taken within the complex, one cannot help but marvel at the beautiful pavilions, serene stretches of white marble with coloured inlay work and majestic bastions. Everything about this fort leaves one in awe. 

Another Mughal wonder that stands tall and mighty, stirring a kind of reverence for its elegance is the Jama Masjid. Known as the largest mosque in India, its vast central courtyard can host 25,000 devotees at a time.

Shop at Famous Markets

While you are at the Red Fort, don’t forget to visit the Meena Bazaar behind Lahori Gate. Designed as a vaulted arcade, it was originally known as Bazaar-e-Musakkaf. Today, the market has become the souvenir destination of Old Delhi and offers intricately designed carpets, pashmina shawls, jewellery and crockery pieces.  

For your next phase of shopping, head to the Chandni Chowk Market. One of the main boulevards of Shahjahanabad, it continues to be one of the busiest markets of the city till date. 

For literary shoppers, the market has endless street-side shops as well as dedicated lanes like ‘Nai Sarak’ and ‘Urdu Bazaar’, offering a wide range of books at budget-friendly prices. If it’s the wedding season, definitely visit its ‘Kinari Bazaar’, selling beautiful embroidered fabrics, zari borders, fancy textiles and embellished clothes. For silver shopping, head to ‘Dariba Kalan’, commonly referred to as the “home to silver” in the capital.

Besides these, the other major attraction of Old Delhi is ‘Khari Baoli’, known as Asia's largest wholesale spice market. So, to replenish your pantry, shop here and find an amazing variety of spices, dry fruits, herbs as well as products like tea and rice. Apart from Chandni Chowk, there is also the smaller ‘Bazaar Chitli Qabar’, nestled within the narrow lanes of Old Delhi. This is especially a great place to go on weekends when its Sunday Market buzzes with vendors selling traditional apparel, semi-precious jewellery, lac bangles and even home décor stuff.

Relish Delectable Street Food

Street food of Delhi has always been very popular among tourists and the locals. Delicacies from the world over and the nation have secured a place in the list of delectable cuisines the state offers. However, if you want to get the real regal taste of Delhi then Old Delhi is the place to be.

Dotted with numerous eateries, a walk down the lanes and by-lanes of Old Delhi will leave one engrossed in myriad aromas of spices and food. This place has a dish for every palette, every appetite - from the light Bun Maska-Chai, tangy Aloo Chaat, Golgappe & Dahi Bhalle to a heavy Parantha & Lassi, spicy Rajma Chawal and delicious Chole Bhature  to the seasonal Daulat Ki Chaat and Kulfi. For non-vegetarian enthusiasts, there are several eateries that serve the quintessential Khamiri Naan with Mutton Nihari, an assortment of kebabs and other Mughlai delicacies. Old Delhi also has an equal share of avenues that serve delicious vegetarian dishes at the Matia Mahal. But, what makes the food here special and worth trying is the fact that each dish here has been perfected over generations. 

So, when in the capital, make sure that exploring Old Delhi falls within the top five to-do things in the city.

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First day at New Delhi railway station: Long queues and Aarogya Setu

Outside the New Delhi Railway station on Tuesday, there was a steady flow of passengers — students, migrants and professionals from within and outside Delhi — eager to return to their families.

More than 4,000 passengers boarded the first three special ‘Rajdhani trains’ from New Delhi on Tuesday as the Railways resumed services, which had been suspended for over a month under the coronavirus lockdown.

The New Delhi-Bilaspur train which left at 4 pm with over 1,000 people on board was the first passenger service of the Railways to start. The other two were to Dibrugarh in Assam and Bengaluru in Karnataka.

Outside the New Delhi Railway station on Tuesday, there was a steady flow of passengers — students, migrants and professionals from within and outside Delhi — eager to return to their families.

“We are doing thermal screening of passengers as they come into the station and only asymptomatic persons are being allowed inside. Only those who have a confirmed ticket would be allowed into the station. The Aarogya Setu application is mandatory for passengers and we are asking those who do not have it on their phones to download it,” said a Northern Railway spokesperson.

The special trains have only air conditioned First AC and AC 2- and 3-Tier coaches. Tickets were only booked online through the IRCTC portal. Passengers were asked to bring their own food and blankets.

Hours before the departure of the first train, a queue of passengers slowly moved past police barricades put up outside the Paharganj entrance of the station.

Many had to make a long trek to reach the station. Among them was Sai Kumar (20), who had left his private hostel in Greater Noida at 8.30 in the morning to catch a 9 pm train to Telangana, fearing that he would not be able to find a way to reach the station.

“Everyone was telling me that there is no transport available and my parents were very nervous, so I decided to leave early. I walked till I reached the highway and tried to hitch a ride. I must have tried flagging down around 40-50 cars before one finally stopped. I paid them Rs 600 and they dropped me till Mayur Vihar. There, I got an e-rickshaw which dropped me to the station for Rs 300. In all, I must have walked around 10 km,” said Kumar, a student of computer science and engineering at Noida International University, who reached the station at 3.30 pm.

There were others who came from across Delhi’s borders. This included B Lakshmi (57), who had arrived from Bengaluru on March 19 for what was supposed to be a week-long stay at an ashram in Kampil, in Uttar Pradesh’s Farrukhabad district.

“I was supposed to take a return train on March 27 but I got stuck. I was comfortable at the ashram but my family was having difficulty coping. So I booked my ticket yesterday and this morning, I took a private cab with two other people from Bengaluru to come to Delhi. The ticket was for Rs 2,500 and the cab cost Rs 8,000. We also had to pay Rs 415 as highway toll. What must it be like for those who don’t have money to even eat?” she said.

More than 3,000 passengers travelled on the three special trains, the Railway Ministry said. The first train to roll after the lockdown, from New Delhi to Bilaspur, had 1,072 passengers on board, while the trains to Dibrugarh and Bengaluru had 1,076 passengers each, according to tweets put out by the Ministry.

Fares depended on the distance. The IRCTC website showed that for trains departing on Tuesday, an AC 3-Tier ticket to Dibrugarh was for Rs 2,510. To Bilaspur Junction, the price was Rs 1,950, and to KSR Bengaluru, it was Rs 2,480.

Deepak Khurey (26) removed his shoes to show its torn soles. “I set off from Rewari on foot around 3 pm on Monday, with my brother-in-law and his wife, and reached Delhi around 5 am on Tuesday. We have no money left. I have sold my phone which got me Rs 500, but that’s not enough to buy a ticket to Bilaspur.”

Twenty-year-old Prince Prajapati and five of his friends had set off on foot at 5 in the morning from Dwarka in the hope of finding some way of getting a cheap ticket.

“We are all from the same village in UP’s Deoria district and we had come to Delhi in December to work as painters. But we have not had any work for the last two months. Last night we tried booking tickets but those cost Rs 1,200 each, while none of us had more than Rs 1,000. We thought we would manage something after reaching here, but got intimidated after seeing the large numbers of people in line with tickets,” he said.

[automotivetransportationresearch]

Asia Pacific electric three-wheeler market Projected To Witness Vigorous Expansion By 2026

The Asia Pacific electric three-wheeler market is estimated to be 156,397 units in 2021 and is projected to grow to 486,446 units by 2026, at a CAGR of 25.5% during the forecast period. The automotive industry is at the cusp of technological evolution to develop zero-emission vehicles, while electric three-wheelers for daily commuting have become the steppingstone for the same. However, before deploying these as primary usages, electric three-wheelers need to have the necessary charging infrastructure and optimum performance. Electric three-wheelers are also noise-free. They are therefore expected to be the building block for the success of emission-free vehicles of the future.

As of 2020, the Asia Pacific electric three-wheeler market was dominated by low-speed, affordable electric three-wheelers, having a top speed of less than 25-35 km/h. To extract more performance out of these vehicles, a bigger battery and advanced motor components are required, which will increase the overall price of the vehicle. Thus, manufacturers around the region, especially from cost-sensitive markets, have stuck to the low-performance electric three-wheelers, as they make more sense economically.

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The market for electric three-wheelers with 3-6 kWh battery capacity is estimated to cover the largest market share by 2026 because of the growing demand for higher battery capacity vehicles that can be used for longer distances without energy drain of the battery. E-rickshaws and electric autorickshaws have a battery capacity of 3–6 kWh. These batteries have higher energy density and thermal stability. They are used in high-performance electric three-wheelers as they offer a high current rate, optimum thermal stability, and a long lifecycle. These batteries are preferred for long-haul as they are large enough to accommodate heavy battery packs built with low-density cells and can offer the required range. Fewer range-related issues, affordability, and a better value proposition in the shared mobility space are the three core USPs of three-wheelers with battery capacity within the range of 3–6 kWh. Industry experts claim that with more daily rides, electric three-wheelers are more lucrative. A petrol-powered three-wheeler has a running cost of about INR 4 per km, while the running cost of its electric three-wheeler is around INR 0.5 per km. Affordable three-wheelers with battery capacity within the range of 3–6 kWh are a fast-moving segment, providing last-mile connectivity and expected to grow further in the countries of Asia Pacific where transportation still poses a challenge.

The 1,000–1,500 W segment by motor power is the largest due to its extensive usage in electric three-wheelers, as it provides a better range compared to below 1,000 W in low-speed electric three-wheelers. Players such as Atul Auto and Piaggio have experienced huge growth in electric three-wheelers with motor power of 1,000–1,500 W. It is estimated that electric three-wheelers with above 1,500 W power are expected to grow at a higher rate than other segments due to their higher energy efficiency and increasing demand for high-performance electric three-wheeler freight carriers. Motor power is one of the important deciding factors in this shift as synergy of motor power with the system helps run the electric three-wheelers.

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The lithium-ion segment by battery type is projected to be the faster-growing segment in the electric three-wheeler market during the forecast period. Established market players are attempting to develop electric three-wheelers equipped with advanced lithium-ion batteries. The limited lifecycle and usable capacity are likely to shift the focus from lead-acid to lithium-ion batteries and drive the electric three-wheeler market during the forecast period. Another advantage of a lithium-ion battery is lightweight, which helps maintain the energy-to-weight ratio of the vehicle. Its electrodes are made of lithium and carbon. It can store more energy per kilogram of weight compared to a lead-acid battery. High energy density helps drivers to deal with range anxiety, and hence, this factor is estimated to drive the lithium-ion battery segment during the forecast period.

India is the largest market in the region, followed by Bangladesh and the Philippines. India is the largest market in the region due to its government policies to support the adoption of electric three-wheelers. In August 2020, the government introduced the new Delhi Electric Vehicle Policy, 2020, intending to increase the adoption of EVs in the national capital region. The new policy proposed tax waivers, charging and swapping infrastructure establishment, battery cycling ecosystem, and creating a non-lapsable State EV Fund. In 2019, Delhi proposed open permits for electric three-wheelers. Moreover, India already has a well-established market for three-wheelers. This is because of the country’s high taxes on petrol, which increases the demand for alternative fuel vehicles. The government’s new vehicle scrappage policies will also support the growth of electric three-wheelers, besides lowering the cost by providing subsidiaries in the country. In 2020, the purchasers of e-carriers were eligible for a scrapping incentive for scrapping and then registering the old ICE goods carriers registered in Delhi. Up to ~USD 104 (INR 7,500) of the incentive shall be reimbursed by the GNCTD for the purchase of e-carriers. Regulatory support would play a key role in electric three-wheeler adoption. A combination of both fiscal and non-fiscal incentives is critical in the medium term. In terms of charging infrastructure, a mix of plug-in charging and battery swapping models must be carefully deployed for the growth of electric three-wheelers. For instance, in 2021, electric vehicle startup Zypp plans to set up 5,000 battery swapping stations for three-wheelers across India over the next three years. The last-mile delivery company, now operational in six cities, has set up 50 battery swapping stations across Delhi NCR and Jaipur.

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Amazon and Walmart face the ire of 70 million Indian shopkeepers

(Bloomberg) –In the heart of New Delhi’s largest wholesale bazaar, merchants who normally compete with each other have united against a common enemy.

“Amazon, Flipkart!” one merchant after another shouts into a microphone from a small stage in Sadar Bazaar’s central traffic circle. Some 50 other shopkeepers gathered around shout back in unison: “Go back! Go back!”

The sit-in, which created more chaos than usual among the rickshaws, motorbikes and ox-carts plying the market road, was one of as many as 700 protests against Amazon.com Inc. and Walmart Inc. — owner of local e-commerce leader Flipkart — that organizers say took place at bazaars across India on a recent Wednesday.

India’s shopkeepers are mobilizing against the global e-commerce giants, alleging they are engaged in predatory pricing in violation of new rules meant to protect local businesses. At stake is the future of retailing in a country with 1.3 billion consumers, where Walmart and Amazon have sunk billions of dollars trying the crack the market and capture its growth potential.

“Amazon and Flipkart are a second version of the East India company,” said Praveen Khandelwal, national secretary of the Confederation of All India Traders at the Delhi protest, referring to the British trading house whose arrival in India kicked off nearly 200 years of colonial rule. “The motive of Amazon and Flipkart is not to do business, but to monopolize and control.”

India’s government in October announced an investigation into the allegations of predatory pricing. Amazon and Walmart said in statements to Bloomberg News last week that their operations comply with Indian laws, and that they act only as a third-party marketplace.

Read: Amazon Doubles Holiday Hiring to 200,000 Temporary Workers

The conflict comes amid a broader global backlash against the breakneck expansion of tech firms — from protests by taxi drivers against an Uber-clone in Jakarta, to couriers for a Softbank-backed delivery startup creating a bonfire of their backpacks in Bogota in protest of low wages and poor benefits.

Representing about 70 million small merchants who collectively control almost 90% of India’s retail trade, India’s shopkeepers union has shown itself to be a strong political force. The traders are an important part of the voter base of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.

“For a government, especially a government of the BJP, which has the support of small businessmen, it may not be prudent or politically advisable to totally ignore such demands,” said Sandeep Shastri, a political scientist at Jain University in Bangalore. “They would have to be seen taking some steps at least.”

The union’s power is a significant reason the government has placed such onerous restrictions on foreign retailers — including a minimum $100 million investment and strict local sourcing rules. Because of the hurdles, the likes of Walmart and Carrefour SA have all but given up on opening their eponymous stores in the country.

The shopkeepers won a key victory against the foreign e-commerce players last year when the government tightened regulations on how the platforms are allowed to sell goods. The rules, aimed at creating a level playing field on pricing, forced Amazon and Flipkart to pull thousands of items from their virtual shelves and restructure large parts of their local operations.

Read: Ambani Readies India’s Alibaba With $24 Billion Holding Firm

The changes, coming after Walmart announced its acquisition of Flipkart, threw the foreign companies into chaos and prompted analysts to question their India investments. With Amazon shut out of China and Walmart’s e-commerce performance in the U.S. decidedly mixed, both companies have settled on India as key to growth. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has pledged to spend $5.5 billion to win India, while Walmart’s $16 billion Flipkart deal was the retailer’s biggest ever.

Now the shopkeepers are alleging Amazon and Flipkart are circumventing the rules with predatory pricing and deep discounting. They are demanding the government shut down the companies’ online marketplaces until they are in compliance.

Amazon said its sellers have complete discretion on what price to sell their products. Flipkart said it provides sellers with data to help determine what product offerings will sell best at what price, but business decisions are ultimately the sellers’ to make.

The flash point for the latest escalation was Diwali, a Hindu festival that’s occasion for a gift-giving bonanza akin to Christmas in Western countries. This year’s festival in October came amid a slowdown in consumer spending that’s hit everyone from carmakers to shampoo sellers. But while the shopkeepers union said its members saw as much as a 60% drop in Diwali sales, Amazon and Flipkart managed to report record revenue from the six-day festival.

The shopkeepers union argued that the online holiday deals must be in violation of the new rules, prompting Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal to announce an investigation.

“E-commerce companies have no right to offer discounts or adopt predatory prices,” Goyal said in October. “Selling products cheaper and resulting the retail sector to incur losses is not allowed.” Another government official said policy makers are looking at setting up a dedicated e-commerce regulator.

A spokesperson for the commerce and industry ministry didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.

Vinod Kumar, a 35-year-old shopkeeper selling women’s cosmetics in the Delhi bazaar, is looking for relief. Standing by his small stall, he picks up a bottle of a rosewater-based hair product. He sells it for 40 rupees (56 cents), but says customers can get it from Amazon or Flipkart for 30 rupees, with delivery right to their home.

“If everything is available online, why would anyone come here to face the heat and the crowds?” he says. “My business is shrinking by the day.”

Kumar says if the situation continues he may go out of business, as many other shops already have.

Read: Walmart Got a $10 Billion Surprise After Buying Flipkart

Overall data show sales at traditional mom-and-pop shops are still growing in India. Though these stores have seen a decline in their share of total retail sales since 2014 as e-commerce and organized retail chains grab market share, the consumer market is expanding at such a pace that absolute spending with mom-and-pop shops increased nearly 60%, according to consultancy Technopak Advisors. That pace of absolute growth is projected to slow slightly to 50% over the next five years.

That may be cold comfort to Muhammad Yusuf. The 72-year-old, who runs a jewelry shop at the Delhi bazaar, says he’s unable to match the prices online, has cut his staff from six employees to two and is in danger of not being able to pay rent.

Yusuf is conspicuous in the e-commerce protest, however, in that he’s sporting a fleece jacket bearing the Amazon logo. Asked why he’s wearing it, he shrugs and says he needed something to keep him warm and found it in a clothing stall nearby. He bought it because it was cheap.

–With assistance from Shruti Srivastava.

The post Amazon and Walmart face the ire of 70 million Indian shopkeepers appeared first on Businessliveme.com.

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The Future of High Tech Battery Rickshaws: Which Will It Be Like in Next 10 Years

Eco-friendly, cost-friendly, low-maintenance, less-document, no-noise, and cost-effective– there’re many more benefits of battery-operated-rickshaws. Here’s top reasons what makes this innovative means of transportation popular. Battery rickshaws in India have already replaced age-old cycle-rickshaws and are slowly on the path of replacing auto-rickshaws too.

1)      battery rickshaw company

2)      battery auto price

3)      battery rickshaw manufacturer in Delhi

4)      battery operated rickshaw

5)      battery auto rickshaw

6)      battery rickshaw spare parts price

 Have a look what e-rickshaws will be like in the next 10 years.

No doubt, technology has transformed over the period. On the same pace, our standard of living has also improved. We have now more luxury and more comfort. However, the saying goes “everything comes at a cost” And the cost of comfort we are affording these days is the damage owning to the air, noise and water pollution.

E-rickshaw is the best solution to reduce the pollution level to a great extent. With e-rickshaws manufacturers are providing quality products and several schemes and offers launched by government, the E rickshaw suppliers industry is anticipated to witness the deserved boost.

Environmental Stability

 Experts say, the battery-operated vehicles significantly help the environmental stability.’

Employability

 The E-rickshaws industry will also tackle the problem of employability. Due to increase demand, any good e-rickshaw manufacturing companies will continue to hire engineers, and other professionals. In addition, those who are not much educated can easily start e-rickshaw business.

Because these battery-operated vehicles are affordable and they don’t require expensive fuel to operate, it will be easier for a poor man to buy an E-Rickshaw and stand on his own feet to support his family.

Improved Health

 Improved health due to environment-friendly atmosphere owning to the reduction in petrol and diesel will give a boost to the e-rickshaw industry.  

Government Contribution

 Due to extensive benefits, the government of India will also help the electric rickshaw industry grow leap and bounds. It will be trying to boost the manufacturing growth.

As E rickshaw:

1)      Electric loading rickshaw price in India

2)      E rickshaw loader specifications

3)      E rickshaw loader price in Delhi

4)      loading rickshaw for sale

5)      battery rickshaw loader

6)      battery operated loader

7)      loading auto rickshaw price

Conclusion

 Based on the information given above, it can be said that the further of Electric Loader Rickshaw in India industry is bright. It’s a boon to technology. It should be accepted on a larger scale. E-rickshaws not just help tackle the problems of transportation, but also reduce pollution.  

In India, there’re many e-rickshaw manufacturers who are contributing greatly to the growth of the industry. Mini Metro EV LLP is one of the fastest e-rickshaw manufacturing companies which are known for providing good quality vehicles and ensuring value for money to its owner.

 SALES DEPT.

Office & Manufacturing Plant Mini Metro EV LLP

64, Mohkampur Industrial Area. Delhi Road- Meerut 250001

+91-9837170066, +91-7351634634

info@mini-metro.com, info.mini-metro@gmail.co

http://www.mini-metro.com/

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Staying afloat in India’s food-tech storm is no easy feat.

The last few years have resembled a battleground for startups in the sector. They’ve been falling like dominoes. Food-tech funding has dipped drastically from $500 million in 2015 to $80 million a year later. Companies have been laying off workers by hundreds. Food-delivery platform Zomato logged a Rs 492 crore loss between 2015 and 2016. Meanwhile, Foodpanda India’s loss ballooned fourfold to Rs 142.6 crore the same year, the Economic Times reported.

But 2-year-old Mumbai-based Scootsy is on track to break even by December and is looking to become a self-sustained profitable venture soon thereafter, CEO Sandeep Das told Quartz.

Scootsy has 2,000 sellers across different categories ranging from boutique owners to booksellers to bakers, yet at least half of the listings are restaurants and kitchens. Of these 1,000-odd food providers, more than 60% exclusively deliver via Scootsy’s platform, Das says. (At the outset, Scootsy was meant to be a food-delivery service. It acquired the Meals on Wheels service so that it could learn from its mistakes. It changed to a multi-category model just before the launch, VCCircle reported.)

Scootsy isn’t just another yellow pages-like listing for every single local dhaba (roadside restaurant) and Chinese restaurant. The team curates offerings based on popularity, a premium reputation or—if the restaurant is not well-established—through tastings. And unlike other services that operate within a radius of three to four kilometers, Scootsy delivers food from up to 15 kms away. The company’s most impressive feat, perhaps, is its 60-minute delivery promise, no matter the distance. Das claims that orders have been delivered within the window more than 98% of time.

By selling premium products to hi-end customers with deep pockets, Scootsy has a shot at creating a unique brand that could garner enough loyalists. However, its exclusivity will likely restrict its reach. For instance, Scootsy claims that its average order size is Rs900($13.94). In India, where the average daily wage was Rs272($4.21) in 2014, that far exceeds what the masses can afford to pay. Whether Scootsy has a future beyond moneyed Mumbaikars is up for debate.

A growing food fiesta

The culture of ordering food online is picking up in India.

The 30% growth in its online food delivery sector between 2015 and 2016 far outpaced the restaurant industry’s 11% growth, according to a 2017 RedSeer report. Online delivery grew, as measured by gross merchandise value from a $120-million industry in India to $300 million over the same period, the consulting firm said. (GMV is often considered a window-dressing metric that exaggerates success, but still the big increase is still notable.)

Earlier, Indians who would order over the phone would send helpers and drivers to pick up. That required sparing change for an auto-rickshaw ride or burning fuel in the car. With other delivery services, there is often a surcharge for home delivery. With Scootsy, the customer does not have to foot any of the delivery cost, so technically, they save money.

“Our margins are on the bill value,” says Das. On average, Scootsy takes a 20% commission from the restaurant.

Restaurants don’t mind forking out a percentage of their earnings because delivery mitigates a lot of overheads that exist when you consume a meal in the restaurant. In some cases, they may have had to hire and pay delivery personnel anyway but lack the bandwidth to train them well. From a customer acquisition point of view, with Scootsy’s wide coverage, they can also have more people tasting their food who would otherwise not come to or order from the restaurant.

Flavored with experience

India is a price-sensitive market and nothing matters more than than a big discount—at least that’s the attitude in the startup sector thus far.

However, this mentality has made homegrown e-commerce startups bleed. Although a low price-tag can indeed lure customers, a lower price on your competitor’s site can make them switch just as fast.”If your whole formula is discounting, someday it will stop,” says Das. “You don’t build loyalty on discounts.”

But then how do you build it? Have the best supply, the best service, and even better price—not by discounting—by combining a few items into a bundle or offering exclusives, says Das. For instance, Scootsy sometimes sells exclusive bento boxes, sandwiches, and shakes from different outlets.

A rich premium shake made with chocolate & coffee fudge by Oh Fudge only for Scootsy customers! Get this shake here: https://t.co/K5M5ihEw6c http://pic.twitter.com/QZ2hvvlPdf

— Scootsy (@ScootsyIt) May 18, 2017

The strategy seems to be working. While its domestic competitors aim to ape and beat deep-pocketed giants like Google’s Areo and UberEATS, Scootsy is acquiring more than 10,000 customers per month and retaining 80% month over month, Das told Quartz. He says the platform may clock fewer orders than competitors like Zomato, but its huge order sizes make it a market leader in terms of GMV.

Uniformed delivery boys.

Another differentiating factor: For Scootsy, the doorstep experience is as important as the online—on its app, its website—and eating ones. “Earlier, the guy who had nothing better to do was given a brown color paper bag wrapped around a 50-day-old newspaper in a dirty plastic white bag. He would show up in bathroom slippers and looked like he hadn’t showered in the last three months,” Das says. “If you’re ordering food from the kind of restaurant we deliver from, food worth Rs5000, this guy needs to be presentable.”

Collectively, the scooter-riding delivery boys are labeled “a squad of knights in shining helmets available to your rescue” in the company’s Twitter bio. They are groomed through a training program at the start and monthly refreshers thereafter. They all don uniforms and are well-spoken. These things matter to elite, urban dwellers—Scootsy’s primary audience.

The premium market is limited

The food-tech scene is mostly thriving in major metros so far. The five Indian cities with the most online ordering accounted for more than 80% of total orders in the country. Basically, these are the places where people have enough disposable income to splurge.

Even as Mumbai starts to lose its mojo as one of India’s most dynamic startup hubs, Scootsy is doubling down on the city, continuing to add on new users. The platform says it has over 201,000 users, counting celebrity clientele like Alia Bhatt among them.

Scootsy adds “a new twist into this game where everybody else is chasing a huge customer base—they’re chasing a huge ticket size,” according to Deepak Menaria, chief idea farmer at the Lemon School of Entrepreneurship in Nagpur, Maharashtra. “There are always going to be few people who wouldn’t mind paying if they’re getting specific food from a specific brand,” he told Quartz, adding that delivery also helps people avoid the hassle of navigating congested routes, traveling for hours, and finding parking.

However, the premium audience is miniscule. “If they have to look at a sustainable model, it would more or less get restricted to ten to fifteen cities in India,” said Menaria. That could work initially. But over time, he believes the brand will have to “change or pivot” and stop riding on just the high-ticket size if it wants to tap into the market of 833 million rural Indians.

Menaria understands that having multiple verticals reflects a “risk mitigation plan” but he also believes that if food is the future for Scootsy, it should ditch its other products. And it’s something Scootsy maybe thinking of already as it pumps new money into food-related ventures.

What’s cooking on funding

Last month, Scootsy raised its first-ever funding round, worth $3.6 million.

With that, Scootsy is launching two new frameworks: one is Scootsy Express and the other—still unnamed—is a cloud kitchen of sorts. The former is essentially a digitized version of Mumbai’s dabbawalas (lunchbox carriers) with offerings from elite restaurants that will allow companies to pre-order corporate lunches. The latter follows a kitchen-based model of sorts, taking control of the cooking, packaging, and delivering food—a winning model as per Sandeep Murthy, co-founder of Mumbai-based Lightbox VC.

Basically, experts think that the food delivery services that just aggregate and deliver, instead of controlling the quality of food and being selective, are among the first to shutter. Scootsy doesn’t fully adopt that model and puts in checks and balances in place. Here’s how: Scootsy will pick a revered Delhi restaurant. Next, it will bring a chef from that eatery to cook in Mumbai for a limited period of time—say, a month. During this time, customers will get an out-of-city experience, getting a taste of something they would’ve never experinced unless they flew or took the train to Delhi. All in the same 60-minute delivery frame.

In the near term, the urban eater is Scootsy’s audience and Scootsy is looking to “work only in cities where we can generate certain order sizes,” says Das. In the coming months, Scootsy is looking to raise another round of funding. This time, the hyperlocal startup will expand its horizons to big cities beyond the borders of Mumbai. Next stop? Delhi NCR.

May 29, 2017 at 09:08AM http://ift.tt/2rvWqDW from Ananya Bhattacharya http://ift.tt/2rvWqDW

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[ohtheurbanity-blog]

What Gujarat’s Largest Trash Pile and the Taj Mahal Have in Common

Since Week 2 was our only weekend with both Saturday and Sunday off, I went with 5 friends to Jaipur and Agra, two of the most famous destinations in India for their history and architecture. It felt weird to be purely a tourist in these cities, to consume sites and not learn about their historical, social, and political underpinnings. Part of it was because of time; we only had one day in each place including the travel time to get to and from airports accounting for infamous Delhi traffic. But oh, how lovely it was to be in a grid-planned city again! Jaipur awed us with its coral palaces and ancient forts, but the constant honking and aggressive shopkeepers reminded us we were still in India. Only after experiencing the persistence of rickshaw drivers and vendors in Jaipur did I appreciate how comparatively chill people in Ahmedabad are. Being in a different city almost made the differences we experience with gender and foreignness more extreme. We were constantly getting scammed as a not-very-subtle group of six young foreigners. Being a woman was even more frustrating. One driver commented that we were sitting “Indian-style” when seeing that our three guy friends sat in the front (us gals only let this happen because their legs took up so much room otherwise!) Another guy laughed as he told his buddy that one of the girls in the group made our reservation to book him as a driver, like having a woman in charge was such a hoot. We spent 12 hours shuttling around from place to place, and crashed around 10pm on Saturday to wake up at 5 the next morning to leave for the Taj Mahal. After a very bumpy, five hour car ride we were in the bustling streets of Agra. The lines to get into the Taj were separated by gender and the ladies line was completely empty while the men’s line wrapped around like a never-ending maze of testosterone. For once, being a woman in India had its perks!

We sailed through security and were greeted inside by an ornately decorated red palace that looked a lot like the buildings we saw in Jaipur. The difference between the bustling outside and the comparatively controlled environment of the garden complex inside the gates was striking. Our first line of order was not finding the Taj, but finding a bathroom. Interestingly, though the entrance fee for foreigners was double of that for Indian citizens, the bathrooms were free for foreigners and not Indians. What if you’re an foreign-born Indian person? Seems weird to charge people for services based on their looks or nationality.

Unable to contain our excitement and curiosity, we went ahead to the entrance to see the long-awaited palace inside. Walking through the darkened hall of the entrance and seeing the marble facade emerge in the back was surreal, like looking at a green screen. The Taj Mahal is such an iconic image and that much more majestic in person that it almost looked two-dimensional until you get closer and realize it’s the real deal. Once the initial excitement of seeing such a famous monument wears off, though, you realize that it’s just that — a famous monument. I’m grateful and glad that I got to see it in my lifetime, but my experiences walking the old streets and slums of Ahmedabad made far more of an impression on me and my understanding of the city than seeing this cool yet overrated building.

Indeed, one of my most transformative days was a day after seeing the Taj for our labor site visits. That day, our group split into pairs for labor site visits to about fourteen different occupations. Each pair shadowed the working day of a laborer, from broom-makers to textile workers to street vendors, to get an idea of what informality looks like and how people make a living. With my project on waste management, I of course chose the path that few others would want to go down: that of trash sorters and pickers. After a bumpy rickshaw ride into narrow trash-strewn dirt paths, we in the village of Siyasadnagar. Our translator/community liaison Beena (who’s part of a human rights NGO that works with 4,000 families along the Lake) explained that the community was largely Muslim and Bengali and worked in low-wage industries like waste, street sweeping, and begging. Most people earn somewhere between 80-300 rupees a day ($1-5) depending on their type of work. Even though Beena was warmly greeted by the people in the community (she’s like a minor celebrity there) and explained why we were there, I still felt really self-conscious with everyone coming out of their houses and gathering around to look at us while we sat there taking notes. While I expected no sugar-coating of inequality with my decision to go to this site, the starkness of poverty nonetheless slapped me in the face as I fidgeted around with all the flies landing on me and tried to avoid stepping in the many piles of discarded, dirt-caked shoes and plastic wrappers on every corner. I was uncomfortable with my own discomfort.

But I had come there to learn and I was incredibly humbled to have the opportunity to interact and see on a firsthand level where trash ends up and who deals with it, and on a broader level what tasks get relegated to the urban poor. We first talked to the owner of a trash sorting shop who’s like an in-between to get trash from the local dump to factories. Like many others in Siyasadnagar, he was from Calcutta and his parents came to Ahmedabad to find work. While he sat by the side, he supervised 7 workers who were busy sorting trash by type (plastics, metals, rubber, etc) and standing on huge piles in metal frames to compress it into blocks that get shipped to factories to be recycled or made into something new. I had a moment of clarity when I saw that this is where everyone’s trash ends up, everything from plastic bottles to calculators and Christmas lights ends up here and gets sorted and sent somewhere else. It made me think hard about my own consumption and our “out of sight out of mind” mentality regarding what we throw out. It doesn’t just disappear, people! More shocking than the huge blocks of trash reminiscent of Wall-E was his contentedness with his situation and that of trash in Ahmedabad. We asked him if he thought there was a better way of handling trash, what kind of improvements he would want to see in his community, and whether he had any aspirations. He thought the current system was “perfect" since the government takes no responsibility to manage trash, and that he’s “used to” his life and conditions in the community, reflecting no desire to be anywhere or do anything else. How ironic that someone who works with trash every day does nothing to curb it in his own community!

The responses started to shift once we met the people who did the literal dirty work. The guys we talked to were between 18-24 years old, but many start much younger (they had been working in the trash business since they were around 10). We left the village to go to Pirana, the waste dump owned by the state government and the largest pile of trash in the state of Gujarat. Though it was a short drive from Siyasadnagar, you could see its peaks from miles away (one of our translators joked that someone should put a “Bollywood” sign on top) and probably smell it from afar too. While hundreds of informal workers go in and out of the dump every day to pick trash, the government refused permission for us (twice!) to enter. So we just drove around it looking for another (less monitored) entry point, our tiny rickshaw dwarfed by the mountain towering above us while the acrid stench of garbage left out in the sun thickened the air. We stopped by the road to talk to some young trash pickers. Their responses revealed the high price of survival, as some reflected desire to go to school but had no other choice than to work in trash all day because it’s easy money and feeding yourself is more important than educating yourself. The power dynamic felt uneven as we extracted details of their livelihoods for the sake of our education, and offered them nothing in return that would tangibly help their situation, just an earnest “thank you.” But perhaps the very act of seeing this kind of invisible labor and talking to those most impacted is an act of subversion in itself, a deliberate exposure to the inequalities created by overconsumption and greed, and in turn a sharp criticism of the government’s inadequacy and blatant neglect of the most marginalized communities. After all, how many times had these trash sorters, who are regarded as trash by the rest of society, been approached and asked how they felt about their work and what they needed the most?

In the span of two days, I visited two towering structures in India: both were spectacles, one a symbol of opulence and pride, something you paid to look at, and the other a symbol of urban failure and shame, something you’d pay to not have to look at. I have to confess that out of all the sights I’ve seen in India, Pirana was a more unforgettable experience than the Taj Mahal no matter what TripAdvisor would say otherwise.