How Chaldal managed to avert huge loss during internet blackout

The internet blackout since Thursday evening has dealt one of the biggest blows the country's online commerce platforms have suffered in the last decade as their virtual marketplaces went completely down.

A good number of industries that became dependent on seamless internet connectivity over the years have been hit by the blackout, but of them, the most affected was online grocery platforms like Chaldal.com.

Chaldal that pioneered online grocery delivery in the country and currently leads the market, usually maintain a gigantic inventory including tonnes of perishable items like vegetables, fruits, fishes, eggs, meat, milk and a wide range of diversified frozen foods.

However, this platform managed to avert the inevitable and dodged the expected losses with some timely strategic decisions from the top management.

"Seeing some supply chain issues since the middle of last week, we started procuring a lot to secure a robust stock for uninterrupted service," Cofounder and CEO of Chaldal Waseem Alim told The Business Standard today. 

"However, as soon as internet went off on Thursday, we had to decide the opposite for perishables."

"Since there had been no new orders from Thursday night, on Friday and Saturday, we sold off our entire stock of vegetables, fruits and eggs in the traditional wholesale market," he said.

As not all items stay fresh equally, his teams prioritised the stock clearance based on their dark store life, Waseem further said.

For Chaldal, the disrupted supply chain amid the complete internet shutdown came as a blessing in disguise as the demand for the commodities were high at the time.

There were stocks of 60,000 to 70,000 eggs, and tonnes of vegetables and fruits, according to the CEO.

"Of the 26 lakh registered customers, around 1 lakh depend on Chaldal for their kitchen and grocery items and we, after receiving orders over the phone, are trying to deliver the goods when the ongoing curfew is being relaxed for few hours every day," said the Chaldal CEO.

He also said that Chaldal's 8-10 tonnes inventory of frozen fishes and meats came down to nearly half during the blackout period.

Waseem further said they have started cautiously procuring fresh produces and eggs again from Monday as customers were asking for those items too.

However, sales were not enough for a fast inventory turnover.

Around 7,000 orders in Dhaka, Chattogram and Jashore were being served by Chaldal daily before the crisis and during the curfew, deliveries resumed with telephonic orders only in the capital, according to Waseem.

As essential items, transportation of groceries are excluded from the curfew restrictions. However, non-grocery e-commerce, have been fully shut amid no internet.