It’s not a surprise anymore that you can order groceries, call for a plumber or book a ticket online from your mobile phone. New players in startup business have been launching a plethora of apps and websites to deliver services. But what if you could do all that without installing an additional app on your phone?
Thanks to the new startups, you could ask for all you need by sending a text over your most frequently used app—WhatsApp. Bangalore based startup TARS had introduced the idea of using Whatsapp to interact with consumers. Simplifying the idea further, another Bangalore based startup BusyOrders could soon replace the most frequently used contact on your Whatsapp messenger by using the chat application to take orders online along with facilitating cashless transactions, attempting to make online shopping seamless for Indian consumers.
A cashless wallet-based service, BusyOrders takes orders from registered user through communication on Whatsapp and offers the user optimum deals with the help of an automated framework that finds deals on basis of location and preference of the user. If the user confirms the offered deal, the order is placed and amount is deducted from user’s wallet. Co-venture of Waferlabs, an IoT startup that had invented world’s first phone to phone charger, BusyOrders is headed by Ameen Sayeed, CEO of Waferlabs and backed by a team of IIM alumni and former e-commerce employees. “On an average, people spend around 8 years of their lifetime in shopping,” says Ameen Sayeed pointing out a Daily Mail report. “We want to simplify online shopping at the most basic level.” Sayeed says that the entire process of buying a product or ordering a service online takes around 30 minutes of a user’s time.
To reduce this time, his team has come up with solutions like better user experience by using backend database to retain user details, contacts and preferences, cashless transactions and usage of WhatsApp, an existing and familiar chat based service. “An average transaction like booking a movie ticket or ordering lunch at office should take less than 5 to 10 minutes,” Sayeed. “That’s the kind of service we aim to provide.” Talking of competition from other WhatsApp using service providers like TARS, Sayeed said, “Unlike others, we have minimized user activity and payment hassle in a way that users would never take more than few minutes to complete an order.”
