![]() Rao and Medda were inspired by Chinese retailer Pinduoduo’s success. The plan was to rely on social commerce to cut customer acquisition costs and build a loyal and massive base. Their goal was to dangle volumes before suppliers and thereby get discounted prices for their lower-income customers. Sankar Bora joined them as co-founder and chief operating officer. Rao was the tech wizard with an IIT background, while Medda, an IIM gold medalist, drew upon his retail experience. These stores purchase at a single entity level, as a result, they could not get great prices from suppliers, who operate on large volumes. The thesis was to capture market share from kirana or neighbourhood stores by selling groceries to the lower income strata. When they started up, co-founders Rao and Medda, natives of Jaipur, felt the city would be a good trial ground for their social commerce concept as they were familiar with it. In another instance, ZopNow, an online grocer, shut its operations in 2019 after trying out various models and came back in a new avatar, as Zopsmart, a provider of ecommerce tech solutions. Tata Group-owned Big Basket, for instance, opened self-service physical stores in 2021, spurred by the customer preference to shop for groceries in person. Online groceries have not had much success either. Meesho, for instance, began as a reseller, but switched to the marketplace model. Indeed, many startups that began with social commerce in India have long since pivoted to a broader model. To be sure, DealShare is not the only startup that has changed tack in this manner. ![]() The upshot of it all is that DealShare has transmogrified from a social commerce-driven online grocer to something resembling a hybrid: a retail online supermarket banking on offline stores. The company scaled back on geographies, dropped a business division, laid off staff, while building a new offline strategy. These internal meetings led to an overhaul of the business model. Over six months, starting April 2022, DealShare had “a series of discussions and meetings" to address these concerns, Sourjyendu Medda, co-founder and co-chief executive, told Mint in an interview. In the months that followed, the shareholders would be grappling with several questions on growth, service, margins and finally, the pressing need to conserve capital, which was becoming crucial for all startups.
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