Bandipora- Unlike the digitized metro cities across India, Jammu & Kashmir hadn’t had much liberty of depending upon the e-commerce business. But now, much of this is changing as a young man—23-year old Mohammad Abubakar—from north Kashmir’s Bandipora has chipped in with his creativity and set up the first online grocery store—The Blue Basket—in his hometown.
Located in Nowpora area of the main market, the store was inaugurated on Saturday by his father Shakeel Ahmad Hakeem—a retired Agriculture officer. On the occasion hundreds of guests and locals participated in the inaugural ceremony and appreciated the youngster’s hard work of taking the grocery business in his hometown to a virtual platform.
Born and brought-up in Bandipora, Abu Bakar’s family moved to Srinagar where he pursued his higher education. However, after seven years, he decided to return to his roots to give “something new” to his people.
A graduate with an MBA degree in marketing from Chandigarh, Abu Bakar did a thorough research on the model of functioning of online grocery stores across India. After a proper documentation of his plan, he thought about replicating the business model in his hometown.
“The idea was to give something new to the people of my town. This is the new concept in the district and I hope people will like it.” says Abubakar. “I’ve seen locals ,especially the elderly, struggling to buy groceries and relying on neighbors to help them procure necessary supplies. This had made their life quite difficult. However, with Blue Basket these basic necessities will be delivered at their doorstep within hours.”
It may be noted, Blue Basket is the district’s first online grocery store that will remain open 24*7. The district now has only two departmental stores. Besides, providing employment opportunities to several people from his native place, Abubakar has a separate marketing team that is helping him with advertisements and other needs.
“I’ve also asked my marketing team to help design several marketing ideas and also asked them to help bring in experts to build the mobile app more user-friendly.” says Abubakar.
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