Arguably the most common culture across all corners of India (besides Bollywood) is our obsession with food. The desire to consume freshly ground spices and flour is deeply rooted in our psyche, especially in rural India. For a visual, remember the movie Mirch Masala with the spice mill where the women gathered in the final scene. Most Indian preparations involve ground spices and flour. Grinding them yourself (as against industry-packaged food) characterize purity, freshness and cleanliness.

Urban India does not have the luxury of space nor can it afford the noise, air and water pollution that accompanies traditional grinding of spices and foodgrains in a local mill or backyard. The solution is GharGhanti - automatic atta chakki (flour mill). These are spice-mills-in-a-box that automatically replicate the stone-against-stone grinding motion, serve enough quantity for one household, operate in a closed box, do not consume much power and are available for about Rs. 7,000. Milcent, Sharp and Nissan are some of the brands that make automatic flour mills, besides several local makes. While Gharghantis are hard to find, finding technicians to repair your 20-year old Gharghanti is even harder.

Interestingly, GharGhanti (like sewing machines) are income opportunities for neighbourhood women who want to earn hourly and daily wages in an urban slum.

Call 922-222-1947 in Mumbai to connect with sellers and technicians for GharGhanti and sewing machines.

Apologies for the not-so-clever title for this blog post. As a startup based and operative in Bombay — the megapolis you can love or you can hate, but you cannot ignore — we have all come to live with the ordeals of traffic jams, transport strikes, fuel strike, truckers strike, rains and bad roads. And then you have events like Raj Thackerey’s arrest and 26/11 attacks.

We were reviewing our data from 2008, and it was interesting to see a correlation between “events” in the city to our business (measured by incoming phone calls in the graphs below). In case of Thackerey’s arrest in October 2008, we saw a huge dip in calls on 19th, 20th and 21st (almost a 50% decrease). That was bad for business, and I am sure a lot of other local businesses felt the same.

In case of the unfortunate attacks on the city in November 2008, we saw a huge surge in calls on 28th November (a 150% increase) and a steady decline in the days that followed. Almost all calls on 28th came in from citizens willing to donate blood to the victims of attacks. We were moved by the show of solidarity and experienced the “spirit” first hand.

One of these days, it would be interesting to see how we do against the stock market, the Satyam fiasco, Obama’s swearing in ceremony and other events - local and global. Our guess is, we are more affected by the small local events than by any big global events.

It is always fascinating to see what users are buying and selling on Chaupaati, outside of the marketed categories of mobiles, computers, electronics, furniture and automobiles. To get these deals, call 922-222-1947 between 8a to 10p 7-days a week.

Top 10 outlier categories, each with about half a dozen active listings:

10. Rentals: 1BHK, 1RHK, PG, Room-share (e.g. 1 room-hall-kitchen chawl in Virar East)

9. CD’s: movies, computer games, console games, music, software (e.g. PS2 and PS3 games without box starting Rs.1,000)

8. Fitness equipment: treadmills, walkers, stretchers, pullies (e.g. Jaipan machine with walker for weight loss, magnetic therapy for Diabetes, vibration therapy for blood circulation for Rs.4,995)

7. Garments: ladies, gents, underwear, jackets, cloth material, branded clothes (e.g. imported men’s underwear, X2X brand from London)

6. Coolers: Videocon, Kenstar, Samrat, Symphony (e.g. 5 year old cooler for Rs.1,000)

5. Sewing machines: Singer, Merritt, Assembled (e.g. Merritt with folding leg machine)

4. Water purifiers: Aquasure, Aquaguard (e.g. unused Aquasure for Rs.1,500 with bill)

3. Shops for sale: 200 sq ft to 900 sq ft (e.g. 167 sq ft carpet area shop in Bhandup E for Rs.2L)

2. Collectibles: coins, stamps, matchboxes, watches, pens (e.g. 1/2 anna 7-metal alloy coin from 1616)

1. Open plots for sale: from 1,000 sq ft to 18 acres (e.g. Rs.100 Crore plot on Worli sea face)

Top 10 outlier listings, which even the categories fail to capture:

10. PCO Coin box in Matunga West for Rs.25,000 (Qty 10 phones, 6 machines, STD/ISD Facility)

9. Antique Locker in Santa Cruz East for Rs.10,000 (75 yrs old, box type, Cub from London)

8. Two-seater Pram in Andheri East for Rs.3,000 & Car seat in Thane West for Rs.1,000

7. Canvas Painting in Andheri East for Rs.3,500 (3.5 Feet Length, 2.6 Feet Height, Bought From Udaipur)

6. Cruise party in Andheri East for Rs.2,000 (Unlimited Food, Drinks, Dance, 8PM-8AM, Market Rate Rs.3380)

5. Zirassic Time Share Plot in Dadar West for Rs.4,00,000 (Part Ownership of the Land, Time Share Holiday Arrangement, Double Surrender Value After 5 Years, One Week in Resort Each Year, IN GOA NEAR BEACH)

4. Match box covers in Dombivali West for Rs.2,00,000 (1000 different match box covers)

3. Mercedes Logo in Mahalakshmi for Rs.6,000 (Brand New, Qty 3)

2. UK Sterling Pounds in Ghatkopar West (Rs. 75 per pound, upto 200 pounds)

1. 9-Bullet Revolver in Charni Road for Rs.90,000 (with bullets, metal, with license, want licensees only)

The following pet animals are up for sale on Chaupaati Bazaar. Call 922-222-1947 to contact sellers.

• Cocker Spaniel dog in Walkeshwar, Malabar Hill for Rs.8,000 (1 month old, golden color, without papers)
• Persian cat in Bandra West for Rs.2,000 (4 months old, 4 cats)
• Doberman dog in Dombivali West for Rs.15,000
• Pet dogs in Jogeshwari East Rs.1,000 and up (Labrador, German Shepherd, Great Dane: small pups with all papers)

Thinking of regularly blogging about some of the whackiest listings we get on Chaupaati. Would also help get the word out to online buyers who would not call our number expecting these items. Watch this space!

Comments and suggestions welcome.

“250 rupees for all three bundles,”

“I just want one. How much?”

I was bargaining for a bundle of white lilies wrapped in cellophane paper at a traffic signal outside the J W Marriott in Bombay. A lovely fragrance wafted from the flowers and mixed with the humid breeze that blew from the ocean.

“120 last price,”

“20 rupees,” I told the kid. 10 years old. Barefoot, ragged clothes. I don’t think he ever saw school.

“20 is what we buy the flowers for, Sir,” he slipped. “Give me 60 rupees.”

“Waah, you buy these for 20 and want to sell them for 120. Profit 100 rupees?” the auto-wala turned around and chipped in.

The kid gave him a stare which did not fail to tell him buzz-off-mind-your-own-business. The digital clock on the traffic signal ahead was ticking away … 20, 19, 18 … I knew and the auto-wala knew and the kid knew. If we did not close this deal in another 15 seconds, the Honda Accord behind us would honk so hard, it would blow our eardrums. 17, 16, 15 …

“Give me 45. Look at them … nice and fresh. 45.” The flower kid knew his stuff. He was reading my body language and was responding with an offer. He was timing it well. He had got me indulged. “40 is a good price for this bouquet,” I thought to myself. “Nice brownie points I will pick up at home.”

“20 rupees. It’s a daily for me,” I said aloud putting up a stern face.

“35,”

Thirty five rupees was lesser than what I had decided I would pay. Now was the time to pull out the money and grab the bouquet. A nice fresh bundle of white fragrant lillies wrapped in a cellophane paper. I would pay a bomb for this had I walked into a flower shop.

5,  4,  3 …

But at that moment, I decided to play a little harder.

“No, no. 20 rupees,” I told the kid. And regretted my offer that very moment.

2, 3, 1. The red light turned green. The kid did himself a huge favour and walked away. The Honda Accord honked. My auto-wala shifted gears and we rolled on.

In those 30 seconds and a Rs. 35 non-deal, I learnt what my five year education did not teach me. The flower kid faked an offer. When he was caught, he quickly corrected it. He got me indulged, he read my body language and he responded well. He responded quickly. And he walked away at the right time. And he walked away like he had nothing to lose. Had he not walked on me, I would have offered Rs. 20 for all flower bouquets every time I saw him or his friends at a traffic signal.

Deal or no-deal? From trying to sell a second hand cell phone to negotiations with a VC; from talks on salary offer to haggling for an antique - a deal and a no-deal are separated by a few seconds, few rupees, few moves.

Vishveshwar Sharma, 28, fled to Mumbai from a village near Bhavanipur in Bihar when he was only 14 and his father could not afford his school fees for Class 10. In Mumbai, he worked as a carpenter to earn a living. He quickly became the bread earner of the family back home and used to visit the village every once in three months to assist his father in farming and to get his sisters married off. At 17, his mother had a paralysis attack, and as the eldest son, he was obliged to get married so his new wife could run the household with 11 people while he was earning in a city 48 hours of a multi-leg journey away. Sharma’s wife had their first baby when he was 20 and second when he was 25, and had just started a new career as a driver in Mumbai. Sharma did not see his first kid until he was a year old, and second until he was 2.5 years and ready for his mundan ceremony in Haridwar last summer. He cannot entertain the thought of having his family over in Mumbai, since it is not something that his Rs. 6,500 per month income can afford. He is one of 3 people from his village, and one of 1,000 from Bhavanipur to make it to Mumbai; and receives a hero’s welcome back home every time he visits.

Sharma changes his mobile phone handset every 3 months and is on his 8th mobile phone. All his mobiles were used before he bought them and he often barters with like-minded friends. He is always aware of the best second hand deals in town. He says, “when you buy a used mobile - dial *#06# to get the IMEI number, then cross-check that code on the phone circuit board and battery back, dial *#0000# to see the month/year of make, and *#92702689# to even see the total hours that the phone has been used”. He continues, “after you buy, don’t forget to dial *#7780# to reset to original settings without actually deleting the ringtones! Never ever dial *#7370#. It deletes everything. I did it to my friend’s phone once and got beaten up.” -chuckles-

He does not watch television, but has a computer in his room (a room shared with 6 other people, all from Bihar). He uses the computer to transfer ringtones and games to his and his friends’ mobiles. His uncle is an electronics technician who repairs TV’s, VCR’s, Computers and Mobiles in the slum and knows over 1,000 people by first name because he is the most popular seller of refills for pre-paid SIM cards, one of the highest selling items among the urban masses now (even rivaling Gutkha - chewing tobacco). He assists his uncle in diagnosing and repairing software malfunctions on mobiles. “My expertise is Nokia”, he says.

Every time Sharma goes back to his village now, he carries a mobile phone handset and leaves it behind. In the village, people have stopped going to the PCO (telephone booth). Instead, they rent mobiles from Sharma’s family by the minute. They can give a missed call to the other party and then receive incoming calls (free to the owner) at the same charge as the PCO - Rs. 3 per minute. Sharma re-charges the card from the city, so his family does not have to spend a dime, and his family makes a handsome living with this.

Sharma never had a landline, and moved straight to the mobile. He never had a television, and moved straight to the computer. He never owned a bike, but has driven a Rolls Royce (valet parking at a 5-star hotel in Mumbai). Everyday, he invents new income and business opportunities, and is one of the millions of connections between urban and rural India. Sharma is also a happy customer of Chaupaati, where he connects with good deals on second hand mobiles and computers.

July 2008: In aggregate, Paan walas are arguably the largest retailers of India, by daily volume of customers and by country-wide reach/penetration. Several large organized retailers of India rely on the paan-walas for their last-mile distribution and therefore their business. You are more likely to find a paan shop on an Indian street than toilets, drinking water or aspirin. Here is a paan wala in Kurla (Mumbai) trying to read the deals advertised on a Chaupaati leaflet while one of his 1,000 daily customers distracts him with a 10 rupee note.

Chaupaati executives visit shopkeepers who have been power users of the Chaupaati service and have connected with several potential buyers through Chaupaati. We try to get candid feedback about their experiences. Here are insights from interviews with three shopkeepers in Ghatkopar; dealing in motorbikes, mobile phones and computers respectively.

Kalpesh Thakur, Auto Smart, Chirag Nagar, Ghatkopar (W): Kalpesh is a dealer in new and second-hand bikes. Kalpesh has listed 15 bikes on Chaupaati in the last month, and has connected with 36 buyers till date (out of 66 leads sent). Our visit was triggered by his complaint to our call center agent that the buyers do not respond to his phone calls. Upon meeting Kalpesh, we discovered that he has a strong preference for connecting with individuals (not dealers) for both buying and selling second hand bikes. He doesn’t particularly care if those individuals are in his locality or not. In fact, he uses Chaupaati to get an edge over other dealers in his neighbourhood, and wants to connect with new deals that are otherwise out-of-reach. When selling a bike, he believes that the buyer is only valuable when he visits the shop (10 Chaupaati buyers visited) and NOT valuable once he walks out of the door without a purchase. After that point, he considers the deal as lost. When buying a bike, however, he does it in two trips: one for on-site inspection (by his employee), and the second one to strike the deal (himself) and drive back with the bike. The Chaupaati flyer was pinned on the soft-board at his desk; most of his friends have heard about Chaupaati from other sources as well, and know him as a dealer listed on Chaupaati. He will continue using the service, but is impatient (as are we) to close his first deal. That one deal will make him a believer.

Kishore Joshi, Rajal Mobile Shop, Ghatkopar (W): Kishore owns a mobile store on a busy Ghatkopar street. In the 10 minutes that we were at his shop, while he provided us feedback; he sold a Tata phone with service contract, recharged a pre-paid Airtel phone with Rs. 50/-, replaced a headphone for a Nokia music phone, accepted a second hand Nokia from a customer to try and find buyers for it, and checked the availability of the display unit of a recent Nokia handset! His items are low value (under Rs. 3,000) but fast moving. He listed 11 items on Chaupaati, out of which 8 were sold elsewhere within a week of listing. He finds the service useful and would continue using it, though he has not done a deal through Chaupaati yet. He has 2 Chaupaati buyers in the pipeline who are negotiating with him over the phone. One buyer visited but did not buy. Kishore strongly prefers local buyers only, and does not want to waste any time on buyers outside the locality. They are usually cheapskates distracting him by making offers to buy at unrealistically low prices.

Ajit Yadav, Om Infotech, Bhatwadi, Ghatkopar (W): Ajit is a certified software professional who owns three computer stores in Ghatkopar doing everything from LAN network set-ups to selling assembled computers with second hand parts. He has listed 9 items on Chaupaati, the most popular listings being a couple of configurations for assembled computers at Rs. 8,000 and Rs. 10,000. He has connected with 116 potential buyers, and he thought 90% of them were valuable! He claims to have sold 2 computer monitors and 1 assembled PC to Chaupaati buyers, though we have reasons to believe that the number is higher. He is extremely pleased with Chaupaati and is a fan of the system we have built. His only complaint is that he would like to receive unlimited leads without having to think about paying per lead (viz. monthly or annual subscription package). In the past, Ajit has tried yellow pages, pink pages (a localized tender process), and online classifieds. He finds the Chaupaati system way more valuable than those options.

We are doing a larger round of phone interviews (with individuals as well), and hope to cover a larger customer base than with personal visits alone. We will keep sharing the learnings and insights on this blog from time to time. An interesting insight in the initial phone calls is that the sellers are quite forgiving so far due to the monsoons, and believe that more conversions would happen once the rains subside and customers are ready to buy in the festive season.

According to 2001 census, the average population density of Greater Mumbai is 24,605 persons per square kilometer. That means if you draw a circle of 564 meter radius around you, there will be over 24,000 people within that circle; and in places like Marine Lines the number will exceed 100,000! With such a high population density, even if you walk a few meters, you will encounter numerous people, who live quite close to you, but you have never seen them. Owing to physical proximity, you definitely want to interact with many of them for your business. But how do you connect to these people?

Yesterday, I was in Naushad’s office to get feedback on Chaupaati’s service. Naushad is a wholesaler of second sale refrigerators in Saki Naka, Mumbai. Over the past 8 years, he has worked hard and expanded his business from a local repair center to a wholesaler supplying refrigerators even in Pune and Karnataka.

Knowing the scale of his business, I was anticipating that Naushad, in his feedback, would ask us to connect him with wholesalers from other cities. But to my surprise, Naushad’s response was very different. He was pleasantly surprised that Mohammed, the buyer he connected with through Chaupaati, lives in Kajupada, just a few meters away from his office. Naushad immediately told him “Aap dukaan pe aake sidha maal utha lo” (You come to the shop and pick up the item).

Interestingly, Alexander Bell and Thomas Watson were just a few meters away when they first used the phone. Did they think that 132 years later, you can use phone to find a person in the suburbs of Mumbai who lives just a few meters away and who wants to buy the same product you want to sell? Call Chaupaati - 9222221947!

Often when someone tells you about a coincidence, you feel people forcefully draw correlations to prove a conjunction. The entire coincidence thing is nonsense and you quietly show a (fake) surprise in other person’s excitement. But what do you do when it happens to you?

On 15 Jun 2008, Kashyap and I were taking a tour in our test market region. Some people had suggested that Sakinaka should be a good market for second hand goods and we wasted no time in getting there.

As soon as we crossed Sakinaka signal we stopped at a mobile store. Unfortunately, the person said he did not deal in second hand items. We moved a few meters ahead and saw a board “Best Computer Solutions - Exchange Old with New Computers”. It was a no brainer. We knew this was our target customer. Best Computer Solutions is owned by a young guy in his early 30’s - Sayed Asad. Asad was on a leave that day and hence we met his assistant Babu Bhai with whom we discussed Chaupaati at length. On 24 Jun 2008, a day before our launch, I made it a point to visit this shop and take some listings. I met Sayed Asad then, who was quite excited about the idea and promised support to us. He quickly gave 9 listings - 4 computers, 2 laptops, and 3 upgrades.

Later, I had a telephonic discussion with Asad and he reported some bugs in our system. His feedback was immediately incorporated. I spoke to him yesterday again. I was checking why has wasn’t accepting buyer leads for laptop sent to him by Chaupaati. He told me his laptop was sold a few days back. After a pause, he added it was sold to a buyer referred through Chaupaati!

This immediately reminded me of Zishaan’s email, which was sent earlier during the day. Zishaan had informed the team that he came across a buyer, a software engineer named Sunil Pachal, who had bought a laptop from a seller connected through Chaupaati. I did not think then that the laptop might have been sold by Asad.

Coincidences did occur. The seller of the laptop deal Zishaan had mentioned was Asad. Asad was a great supporter of our service and he turned out to be our first known seller. But more than the coincidence, the thought that Chaupaati was able to connect Sayed Asad and Sunil Pachal, who otherwise would have not known each other, is quite energizing for the entire team. And this was really simple for them. They called 922 222 1947 and Chaupaati connected them. Both spoke to each other over the phone without moving an inch, discussed the price and other terms and conditions and then physically made the deal.

Traditionally, word of mouth marketing is the only channel available for millions of people who form a major portion of India’s working class - the unorganized sector. Chaupaati aims to empower these people with freedom to market their products and services. We hope that we empower many more people like Asad with this freedom.