 "PurpleTalk invests $1 mn in retail tech start-up Nukkad Shops")
PurpleTalk Inc, a Dallas-headquartered mobile solutions company, has invested $1 million (approximately Rs 6.7 crore) in Nukkad Shops, a Hyderabad-based uber-local commerce platform that helps neighbourhood mom-and-pop retail stores take their businesses online.
"The neighbourhood grocery shops are often low-tech and pretty unorganised. Nukkad Shops aims to provide hi-tech weaponry to them to fight back against the well-funded megaliths that the mobile grocery giants are becoming," said co-founder and vice-president (delivery) Vivek Shukla.
Founded in September 2015, Nukkad Shops helps users access their neighbourhood shops which are serving in close to a two-kilometre radius, through its mobile-only app customes can browse through the inventory, order and get goods delivered in 30 minutes.
For the retailers, Nukkad Shops' point-of-sales (POS)-based system comprising a 10-inch tablet, an in-built thermal printer, barcode scanner and a cash drawer at the heart of the app, which is compatible with Android and iOS-based mobile devices, provides an opportunity to digitise their entire inventory and make it accessible for all their regular customers.
"The POS-based system also doubles as a marketing automation and customer relationship management (CRM) platform, which allows the retailer to run his own promotions and campaigns, create specialised offers as well as enable loyalty programmes to improve customer retention," said co-founder and CxO Ravi Korukonda.
Nukkad Shops, which just left the beta phase, is currently live in 180 grocery stores in and around Hyderabad. It has 20,000 users now, with the average basket size being Rs 250.
Stating that Nukkad Shops was looking at working closely with local farmers and 3PL (third-party logistics) players for delivery of fresh vegetables, Shukla said that the company was toying with idea of providing more alternative revenue streams to the retailers including online bus ticket booking and leads generation to banks, which should crystalise within the next six months.
"We have not enabled our revenue model as yet. We will unlock our revenue possibilities after we on board 100,000 users in about three months from now," Korukonda said, adding that Nukkad Shops was targeting to deploy its solution at 10,000 shops by the end of this calendar year.