Dukaan to help business across India sell online without heavy technology
Mumbai: Satara-based engineer Suumit Shah, found a solution for all those small businesses that were affected by lockdown and could not conduct any sales. In the month of July, in the middle of the lockdown, he launched an android app called Dukaan to help businesses across India sell online, without using heavy technology.
Today, Dukaan now has over 1,50,000 stores created online, over 5,00,000 products have been added across 40 different categories of businesses. Over 400 cities covered by the app and they have received more than 75,000 orders. In short, the app is helping create a large impact across the country and making ‘Digital India’ truly come to life.
The USP of Dukaan is its simplicity. “We have a 16-year-old kid who helped his Dad set up online Rakhi store in Gorakhpur, and also a 59-year-old wholesaler from Surat who sells beauty products to barbers online with help of Dukaan,” says Suumit Shah, founder. “There is no platform which is as easy as using Google Pay for creating online stores – that’s exactly what Dukaan wants to become. We offer Desi Bharosa with World-Class technology, we believe that through platforms like Dukaan, we can truly create a digital India,” Suumit added.
Dukaan was conceptualized when Suumit got a text from international brand Jockey’s Bengaluru outlet that said: “We now start accepting orders on WhatsApp”. At first, he was appalled to see that a brand like Jockey could sell on WhatsApp. But then he realized that there was an opportunity to build an easy-to-use platform for small and medium businesses and help them go online. Within the next 48 hours, Suumit, along with his team Subhash Choudhary, Kaustub Pandey and Anuraag Meena, built Dukaan – an android app which lets anyone create their online store within 30 seconds
Founder Suumit Shah used to errands for a small store run by his uncle before getting an engineering degree. While pursuing the degree, he learned web design and web development from his room-mate in college. As a quick learner, Shah completed several digital marketing online courses online and started his own business by the name of Risemetric in 2014, with his existing CTO Subhash Choudhary – a college dropout turned into hardcore techie in 2014. He is one of the most successful digital entrepreneurs in the country helping brands like Sony, McDonald’s, Oyo, Cred, etc. Their modest mannerism doesn’t truly reflect his quick ascent into business and digital fame.