Final Report
Final Report
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Executive Summary
This report outlines a comprehensive study on the E-business practices of Chaldal.com which
is one of the leading players in the online retailing e-business scenario of Bangladesh. Chaldal
started its operations in 2013 with an aim to provide grocery and daily needs solutions to the
consumers by taking orders online and reaching the customer by home delivery processes. For
ensuring quality service, they incorporated variety of operational systems which are based
majorly on online technology. Starting from taking orders to customer relationship
management and enterprise resource planning, Chaldal uses customized management software
tailored to their requirements by their in house IT experts. Their revenue model is primarily
based on product sales and there are no direct competitors in the market for now. Though like
all online businesses they are prone to some threats, but they are resourceful enough with a
combination of high profile experts to avert any barriers in their online business.
Introduction
Chaldal.com is one of the largest dedicated online grocery retailers of our country. It was
founded by Waseem alim, Tejas Viswanath, and Zia Ashraf in 2013.
It has more than 200k subscribers and 250+ business customers across Dhaka. It provides
online services like online purchase of the grocery products and also delivery services among
everywhere in Dhaka city. On day one they started their business with one cycle, one delivery
executive, two orders and no complaints. On their 16th day they had a van, tow delivery
executives, an accountant and COO on delivery. On their 700th day of their opening they now
have 22 vehicles, 100 working people and 200 orders daily. They don’t have to look back from
that position and at present they have 50 covered vans, 50 motor cycles, and 250 working
people, 200+ orders daily and counting.
Their geographical boundary includes Dhaka city except Jatrabari, Narayangang, Tongi, Old
Dhaka and some remote areas.
Requirement 1
E-business in Organization
Context:
Chaldal.com gives the services of ordering products using their websites which have a lot of
collection of different grocery items from different brands. Customers can choose their desired
items from the catalog and make order which then would be processed and after an hour or two
they get delivered at free of cost
Mission:
They want to sell good and quality product through online in the whole Dhaka city. They also
want to cover the whole Dhaka city under One hour delivery service.
Vision:
Chaldal wants to save both the time and the money of people by online service. People can
order from anywhere by using internet. It’s mainly useful for the corporate people. It will save
both their time and money.
Promises:
Customer service.
Quality Product.
Fresh Vegetables.
Low Price.
Range of products/service:
They mainly sell home clearing and grocery items, bakery items, pet food and what not. They
distribute their products within one hour according to their geographic location.
They offer 5000+ several categories of product in 7 warehouses, they maintain a good quality
product, they also take order by phone and there is also a 7 days return policy.
Key business focus:
It hopes to become the “Amazon Fresh of Dhaka”. The company, which is currently averaging
250-350 deliveries a day, plans to cover all of Dhaka before potentially expanding into other
Bangladesh cities. Its goal is to give customers the experience of shopping in a big box store
with a huge selection.
E business Model:
Business to Consumer (B2C) Model: Chaldal following B2C business model sells its
product directly to a customer. A customer can view products shown on the website of
Chaldal. The customer can choose a product and order the same. Website will send a
notification to the Chaldal via email and it will dispatch the product/goods to the
customer.
Business to Business (B2B) Model: Chaldal also following B2B business model sells its
product to an intermediate buyer who then sells the product to the final customer. As an
example, a wholesaler places an order from a chaldal's website and after receiving the
consignment, sells the end product to final customer who comes to buy the product at
wholesaler's retail outlet.
E-Commerce has changed the way the world buys and sells goods and services. In order to
manage Chaldal, the management has to face many difficulties and challenges like evolving
with emerging technologies, attracting and retaining customers, keeping watch on competitor
moves, E-Business security, E-Business laws, taxation etc. The management has to take care
of these challenges very carefully.
Requirement 2
Chaldal is one of a kind since started its journey in the country. As Dhaka is one of the densest
cities in the world, people have to lose so much time in traffic jam and on the congested road.
In that case, Chaladal.com can help getting the products without wasting so much time at our
doorstep which makes it a unique value proposition in terms of e-business.
Revenue Model:
Chaldal.com follows Sales Based Revenue Model which is Web Catalog Revenue Model. The
web catalog revenue model is essentially an electronic version of the traditional catalog based
retail revenue model. Chaldal earns its revenue only by selling their products. There is no other
way of earning revenue except this.
Characteristics of product and service: Chaldal is an online based retail store. They
mainly sell home clearing, grocery items, bakery items and pet food.
Market Segment: Chaldal mainly segmented their market to those who are corporate
job holders and the persons who has less time for shopping daily grosser items.
Revenue generating strategy: It earns their revenue only by selling their products.
There is no other way of earning revenue except selling own products.
Market Place Structure: Chaldal at present is one of the biggest online retail stores in
the country. Their main office is in Uttara, but they also have some other offices and
stores in Banani, Rajarbag, Gulshan and Bashundhara.
Requirement 3
E-business platform/infrastructure
In Chaldal.com, they use customized integrated ERP by which they manage their inventory,
supply chain, internal operations and delivery. In their business, they need to deal with a lot of
perishable grocery items. So, it is very much essential for them to track the expiry of the items
and replace them.
So, for managing these operations, their customized ERP is designed to predict the necessity
of the products beforehand and let the executives know about the procurement necessity and
the vendor options. And, whenever an order is being placed, after getting verified from the
operations team and central coordination, the job order gets automatically updated in the
delivery team’s mobile application. In this way, Chaldal’s enterprise resources are being
managed.
In Chaldal, CRM systems are designed to compile information on customers across different
channels -- or points of contact between the customer and the company which includes their
company website, telephone, direct mail, email and social media. Chaldal’s CRM systems can
also give customer-facing staff detailed information on customers' personal information,
purchase history, buying preferences and concerns. So, with this information, they consistently
contact the customer on their new offerings through telephone, email and automated text
messaging.
For customers –
For taking orders from the customers, Chaldal had developed their customer oriented ordering
application for android and ios platforms. Any potential customer can download the application
and log in with their user information to avail their service.
Chaldal also uses a different mobile application based on android which is only used by its
delivery team. Whenever an order in being placed at Chaldal’s ordering database, after
necessary verification from the operations team, the job order gets updated in the application
database and the job is allocated to the right personal working in the delivery team
automatically.
Internet -
In Chaldal, they do not use any intranet or extranet protocol for internal and external
communication. For all modes of communication, they use the internet and all of their business
applications and software are designed on the basis of internet communication protocol.
Starting from placing an order to updating inventory and notifying delivery team, each and
every aspect of communication is conducted using the internet protocol.
Web Technology
Web 2.0 -
Web 2.0 describes a set of Internet technologies. By using Web 2.0 technology, Chaldal makes
its web-based applications fast and dynamic, and they behave much like software applications
installed on desktop computers. For example, all of their online applications such as websites
and databases are interactive and offer two way communications which increases the web
responsiveness from the customers and the company side as well.
In Chaldal, they accept all kinds of debit and credit cards starting from visa to DBBL Nexus.
On the other hand, they also allow cash on delivery which is majorly convenient for the people
in Bangladesh. Surprisingly, though PayPal is not that much popular in Bangladesh, still
Chaldal has a provision of payment through PayPal. This is because they also get orders and
payments from foreign countries to make delivery within Bangladesh. They manage these
payment systems online by coordinating with the respective banks when a payment is made by
using a card.
For web content management, Chaldal has its own in house content management team (CMT)
who regularly updates their website and application contents. Whenever, stocks, prices or
offers are changed, the CMT members log into the system base and change the following
information from the back end user interface. The overall master control of the content
management system is only authorized to a few personal namely CEO, Head of IT and VP of
IT Services and Online Communication.
Requirement 4
Strategy of Chaldal.com
ChalDal is an online based grocery shop. They sell grocery products via online. They don’t do
business in any sort of retail shop, so they don’t have any corporate strategy. The main objective
of ChalDal is to sell grocery to consumer.
To sell throughout Dhaka they have set some strategies to run their business. First of all they
take orders online from customers. They deliver the products within 1 hour. They are trying to
give their customers have their products in convenient time so that they will regain customer
satisfaction. If they don’t have a product of consumer’s interest they try to put that thing in
their inventory.
E-channel structure
They are mainly focusing normal structure of E-Business. They are giving pictures of product
and through online consumer are posting their desired products. After receiving the orders they
are delivering their products within one hour.
SWOT analysis
Strength
Resources: ChalDal has resources with which they are able to meet up their customer needs.
Delivery limit is maximum 1 hour which makes them efficient and dedicated. To deliver the
products they have 20 cover vans and 50 motorcycles.
Different initiative: There are many online shops where grocery items are sold. But chaldal is
only focusing on grocery items. For this unique thing people who only want to find grocery
items will find here very easily.
Weakness
Lack of availability: ChalDal covering most of areas in Dhaka city but they are missing some
parts where people are now interested in online shopping like Old Dhaka, Narayangaj, Jatrabari
etc.
Lack of distribution channel: As they don’t have any physical store, they have to do business
from their main office. It also might take longer time to deliver the products.
Opportunity
Online grocery: They have opportunity and also capability to become no.1 online grocery shop
in Dhaka. People now-a-days are involved more with internet. So they should let the people
know that they exist. They have an opportunity to get a large portion of market share in
corporate market.
Threats
Competitor: They have competitors who have physical store as well as online store. It gives
them an edge. They can deliver the items very easily by locating the address of their customer.
They can send the items quickly from the nearest store of that particular shop. They are losing
market share there.
Chaldal has started its business recently. They have competitors in physical market which can
turn their business in online market also. Recently famous physical supermarkets like meena
bazaar, unimart has started their online business. They have a lot of capital so if they try to
capture online market they can do it very easily which can be a big threat because they are
renowned brands in market and people shop from there once in a month at least.
To prevent them from getting great response Chaldal needs to create greater response in
consumers mind. They need to provide better services. If they are providing better service by
being online shop than having physical store people will tend to buy product from them.
In corporate market Fresh is doing very good. They have contacts with many companies. They
provide grocery to many manufacturing company as well as corporate house.
To capture corporate market ChalDal needs to have a very good reputation in consumer market.
After getting hold to consumer market they can also get a good market share in corporate
market.
In addition to traditional retailers, Chaldal’s competitors include Direct Fresh and Meena
bazaar. Direct Fresh, however, sells organic produce and other premium food, while Meena
bazaar is run by a brick and mortar retailer whose mother company is Gemcon group.
Requirement 5
E-business Security
Denial of Service (DOS) attacks- Server starts sending DOS messages to authorized users
when a hacker floods the website with large amount of useless traffic which exceeds the
server's capacity to process. As a result, system information becomes unavailable to
authorized users.
Spoofing- When someone inserts spurious information into the system by making it appear
as if it is from a legitimate party, uses fake email addresses or masquerades some identity,
it is called spoofing. So, spoofing emails could be sent to customers from Chaldal to get
personal information.
Applets- Viruses replicate and spread to other files, worms spread from computer to
computer while Trojan horses do something other than expected or claimed. So, Chaldal is
always in threat for applets.
Password Replication- The businesses that use their own online servers for data
management, they manage separate accounts for employees to get logged in.
Wireless and Mobile Security- Many businesses use wireless Internet connections and
mobile devices to access the Web. Wireless networks present a security hazard, since
outside users can attempt to connect to a wireless network, allowing them to potentially
eavesdrop on communications.
From those identified risks two which most likely to cause severe damage-
Password replication could cause severe damage. When an employee of Chaldal logs into
his/her account by giving password, then the password might be remembered for further
log in assistance. In that case, any other outsider who will try to log in by that particular
device might use the pre-deposited password and cause a security breach. To avert these
situations, Chaldal.com can use mobile verification method.
Recommendations
Router- Routers are network traffic managing device placed between the networks to
ensure that the route followed is as intended. Chaldal should follow this procedure to
protect its wireless networks in warehouses and offices.
Packet filter- Packet filtering mechanisms identify the source, destination and filter the
flowing traffic. This should be used by Chaldal to prevent denial of service threats.
Key Findings
i. Chaldal.com is one of the largest dedicated online grocery retailers which gives the
services of ordering products using their websites.
ii. Currently Chaldal.com is following two types of E-Business models such as B2C which
helps the customer to choose a product and order the same and another one is B2B by
which they can sell their products to intermediate buyers.
iii. Chaladal.com can help getting the products without wasting so much time which makes
it a unique value proposition in terms of e-business.
iv. Chaldal.com follows Sales Based Revenue Model which is essentially an electronic
version of the traditional catalog based retail revenue model.
v. Chaldal.com uses customized ERP which is designed to predict the necessity of the
products beforehand and CRM systems are designed to compile information on
customers across different channels.
vi. Chaldal.com had developed their customer oriented ordering application for android
and ios for the purpose of taking orders.
vii. Chaldal.com uses internet instead of using intranet or extranet protocol for internal and
external communication.
viii. For making web based applications super-fast and efficient Chaldal.com uses web 2.0
technologies.
ix. Chaldal.com accepts all kinds of payments such as PayPal, credit card and debit card
and also cash on delivery systems which makes it convenient to use.
x. For web content management, Chaldal.com has its own in house content management
team (CMT) who regularly updates their website and application contents
Recommendations
Expanding Business: Chaldal.com can expand their business outside Dhaka like Gazipur,
Narayanganj, Chittagong, Sylhet etc.
Security System: Chaldal.com can update their security system with the most recent security
system because their whole business is based on internet. They can use firewall to prevent
unauthorized access. They can also use strong router and packet filter to improve customer
service.
Delivery Process: Chaldal.com can improve their delivery system. As its Bangladesh’s
largest online grocery stores, the delivery should be faster. They can start a service
emergency delivery where they will deliver their product within one hour with higher
delivery charges.
Customer Engagement: Chaldal.com can offer customer more benefits so that they can
increase their loyal customer’s database. They can give coupon, gifts, discounts for their loyal
customers.
E-business Management: Chaldal.com can improve their internal and external management
system with a proper hierarchy.
Conclusion
Chaldal.com is gradually becoming one of the one of the popular media of online retail store
around Dhaka city. From its inception, it has been trying to maintain a good service. Apart
from its customer service Chaldal has already established itself as a reliable name among the
online customers.
Having two of the founders from Silicon Valley, they have enough confidence in online
business in terms of security issues. They have a target to cover all the sections of Dhaka city
in near future. Their main motto and believe is that “time is valuable to fellow Dhaka residents,
and that they should not have to waste hours in traffic, brave harsh weather and wait in line just
to buy necessities like eggs! This is why they deliver every day needs to their customers’ door-
steps across Dhaka”.
References
Chaldal Online Grocery Shopping and Delivery in Dhaka | Buy fresh food items, personal
care, baby products and more. (2018). Chaldal . Retrieved from https://chaldal.com
What techniques and strategies will influence ecommerce trends in 2018 | Smart Insights.
(2018). Smart Insights. Retrieved from
https://www.smartinsights.com/ecommerce/ecommerce-strategy/10-mega-ecommerce-
trends-2018/