''Best-selling on Zomato, but I want my own online store"

Here’s Pulkit Prasad.

A local entrepreneur from a small town in U.P., India. He runs a family business started by his father way back in 1991.

Then, a local canteen, has today, turned into 3 restaurants and a successful online business.

His mission is simple and dreams are moderate. We bring to you his story in our series of empowering local entrepreneurs.

Pulkit Prasad is a software engineer and after two years of job, he decided to shift to his business in 2011.

His business goes by the name of USB Foods i.e. United Snacks Bar.

It is a food business, as the name suggests, and offers different kinds of meals and fast food.

He quips, “ My father was the first one in the whole of India to start our unique dish i.e. Pyaz ka Samosa. It is our most-selling and whenever a new restaurant opens in Mathura, it is a must on their menu.”

Going online

With time, every business changes and must change in order to cater more efficiently.

Food ordering has always been a thing but with Covid coming into the picture, the world realized the importance of getting food delivered at home all the more. It became a necessity.

E-commerce platforms in the likes of Zomato and Swiggy became popular and local businesses such as USB got themselves registered.

Also Read
Online Stores: Keeping Up with Changing Customers

Pulkit started selling through them online and claims he was getting around 200 orders per day and a major amount of revenue was getting generated.

Pulkit says, “I believe every business model should change with time. With e-commerce, our business expanded. We were catering to customers staying as far as 10-15 kms from our shop.”

Problems faced

Every other day we hear of exploitation by bigger players. Pulkit, too, as an entrepreneur faced a lot of difficulties at the hands of these big players.

Massive commissions, increased prices, loss of reputation are a few to mention.

“We used to get a lot of orders but the revenue generated was not equivalent to that. And the policies to communicate were too complicated.”

“To lure customers, they offer heavy discounts, but we suffer in the end. Customers feel that we are charging them high rates and it matters so much to your reputation, especially when it is a local business.”

Also Read
Is Creating an Online Store The Way Forward?

Pulkit also mentions some feedback that he now gets from customers.

“One of my customers said that zomato’s pyaz ka samosa is very expensive but when we order it from your channel, it is very cheap.”

This makes Pulkit happy that he is serving his customers in less and this way they would come to him.

Shift in mindset

Good amount of revenue, more customers, expanded reach, but, second priority.

More and more businesses have stated off-lately that they do not know if the customer is buying their product or the platform. That is what brought a change in Pulkit’s mindset.

He quips, “These platforms always keep us on second priority. I did not like it. We work hard and deliver the best quality products but we are not highlighted like that. Hence, I decided to start my own selling platform.”

Pulkit started off with Jungleworks product Yelo in December last year. Yelo offers a digital storefront wherein very easily one can list their products and start selling in no time.

More and more businesses are buying this product in order to increase their revenue and gain profitability.

Pulkit says, I tried a few other products as well before Yelo but I did not get the desired output. With Yelo, I went live recently, and have been getting new customers. I am sure once it gets promoted, a whole lot of new customers will rush in.

Also Read
Taking Your Business Online In 2022 With Yelo

The future

Pulkit says he is not very ambitious on expanding to other cities and is satisfied with his business as of now. He believes in honesty, hard work and quality and that’s how he faces challenges.

With Yelo, another challenge of his has been solved. He is shy of facing customers and is relieved that he is engaging with them now online.

‘I have always preferred online sales over the counter sales. Now, my customers want it too. I have made up my mind to shift completely to my online store by the end of 2023. And I am sure of the success.”

Well, we wish him all the very best.