Interviewed By Sumaiya Siddique, MBR Team

MBR: Chaldal.com is one of the major players in the online grocery business, a part of the e-commerce ecosystem. Eight years ago, when Chaldal.com put its baby step in the sector, the online grocery business was not as prominent as it is now. At that time, what inspired you to come to this sector?

Waseem Alim: From the very beginning, Chaldal had strength in software, finance, and operation and wanted to use those in the society as solutions for problems that had not been addressed before.

 Chaldal always believes that technology can be used to solve fundamental problems of the developing world and therefore tries to be at the forefront of technology at all times. In this day and age, people should not have to wait for hours in traffic or queue up to buy necessities like eggs.

MBR: Chaldal.com has been hugely successful and has grown tenfold since it began its journey back in 2013. Chaldal has recently secured $10 million of foreign investment for expansion. Please tell us a little bit about your plans for expansion and how you believe this funding will aid in the further growth of the business.

 Waseem Alim: We want to utilize each and every dollar invested in Chaldal more efficiently. The number of funds we have raised till now have been used to deliver more than 10,000 deliveries each day, and we would consider it a success when we will triple this number. As a milestone, Chaldal wants to reach a point where we will require less investment or funds to deliver more.

Chaldal is growing each and every day through constant research, development, and with the ambition to be better and bigger in the future. We are going for a rapid nationwide expansion and we believe that within a few years we will be able to deliver and provide our services everywhere in Bangladesh, even in the remotest areas.

MBR: During the lockdown, online stores enjoyed a steep growth in their demand. As the economy is resuming and physical retail stores are opening again, how is the consumer behavior at present and how has Chaldal addressed such changes in consumer behavior?

 Waseem Alim: The economy is getting back to its regular pace which is great for Bangladesh and for Chaldal. It will bring new opportunities to grow and improve each and every day. Going through the Covid period was very hard for us but it also gave us the opportunity to get better than before and understand our customers’ needs and behaviors more.

This hardship and experience will help us now to provide more convenient services for our customers with faster delivery, better quality, product variety, and lower price. People’s lives will get busier than before as the economy resumes and Chaldal will try their best to make their lives easier with better and improved services.

MBR: When Chaldal started its journey, it used to follow the Instacart Model. Over these eight years, it has changed its business model twice, and currently, it is using the Dark Store Model. Will you please share the benefits of using this model and the challenges you have faced during the transition?

Waseem Alim: Chaldal used to follow the Instacart Model as it was already an established model back in 2013. Later Chaldal started using the Dark Store Model in 2014 before anyone else was using it in scale. The earlier model was not sufficient for the rapid growth and constant development of our services.

 We wanted to keep getting better in our inventory control, quality control, providing varieties of products, and ensuring fast delivery, and for all these reasons, moving to Dark Store was a necessary and important step.