This start-up uses emojis to disrupt online groceries

Terraa thinks it has the key to getting grocery deliveries right in India. Tech in Asia explores

According to the founder of Divum Labs, Vaideeswaran Sethuraman, the inherently consumer-facing world of grocery delivery start-ups has wasted too much time focusing on its operational aspects.
 

Perhaps this is why he waited for the crowd to clear before launching Terraa. Until now, Divum has focused on building apps and cloud-based solutions for other start-ups and has worked with the likes of Mahindra Tata’s Babyoye and travel portal Makemytrip. Terraa is its first foray into the product space.
 

So far, Terraa has managed to successfully tackle the major problems that typically afflict grocery delivery start-ups in India. It has tied up with Gojavas, a logistics management company with connectivity to over 300 cities. This means that aspects like pickup, drop off, and collecting cash on delivery will be entirely handled by gojavas. “While we’ve also tied up a bank and a payment wallet, we realised that this cash economy would require handling cash on delivery seamlessly,” says Vaideeswaran.
 

 

If not logistics or procurement, what’s left to focus on? “Marketing and bringing the best product to our consumers,” Vaideeswaran says. “Conventionally, grocery shopping has been a social thing,” he explains. “Families go to stores together and there are so many psychological things that have come with that. That’s an inherently social thing. Think of loyalty to a certain store, or the exciting feeling of getting rewards or discounts. That’s gamification. Our question was: why can’t we bring these aspects to an app?”
 

Terraa’s app is the start-up’s crown jewel. It’s equipped with a chat-like interface where users can select ‘prodicons’, or easy to load, emoticon-esque pictures of groceries that are carefully hand-drawn by Terraa’s design team.

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This is an excerpt from Tech in Asia. You can read the full article here.