Covid 19 Impact on Startups-
The Pandemic of Covid-19 took the world by storm, everything was shaken to its core. Even some businesses that had deep strong roots, couldn’t endure it’s ferocity. While the world was learning to continue living amidst the impact of covid-19, there was a rising startup which was on its way to glory. While the waves kept hitting the world, ‘The New Shop’ a startup by two brother-sister and a friend, knew how to ride this tide and find the kingdom of new success
Founded in March19 by brother and sister Aastha Almast and Charak Almast, and their dear friend Mani Dev Gyawali, The New Shop fundamentally is a chain of 24-hour open convenience retail stores that are located in various corners of the world. Lead and owned by Accelerate ProductX Ventures Pvt ltd, The New Shop has an aim to become a brand that's just a walk away from everyone’s place.
“India is a budding country that is on a path to growth and therefore the third-largest consumer market globally. The new on-the-go and modern lifestyle of India, needs regulated, normalized and hygienic retail services across the country at affordable prices, at transit points and around the clock services,” said 35-year-old co-founder Aastha Almast. “We wanted to experiment to find the perfect size of the shop and an exemplary location for expansion of our brand. We finalized three store sizes, small (10 sq. ft), medium (50 sq. ft), and enormous (100-150 sq. ft),” said Mani Dev Gyawali.
The founders of this Rising Startup tested each of those store sizes at seven location categories such as educational institutions, offices and co-working spaces, hotels, shopping complexes, college hostels, and railway platforms. They also explored with the different merchandise options to market more Indian products that act as alternatives to their non-Indian counterpart. Then they measured their acceptance in an ecosystem where people need those goods, and it worked well for them.
“By January 2020, we grew to a number of 100 stores all over Delhi in all sizes and even grabbed a deal with Indian Railways for their plan to expand The New Shop,” says Aastha. This led the rising startup to reach new transit points where they could explore their business strength such as, highways, petrol pumps, and bus terminals. But when the rising startup started touching new heights of success, the pandemic brought them on their knees, and every one of its stores had to shut doors to walk-in customers, due to government regulations and curfews. However, what came as a blessing in disguise for them was the very fact that they were already working on a technology for omni-channel selling, which was supposed to be launched in the future, after the company had grown exponentially and had reached a huge scale,” says Aastha.
The New Shop earns money from the sale of products at its chain of 24*7 open stores and works on a variable cost model of business, where it works with higher margin brands and everyone of its operating costs share a percentage of that margin.
Presently, all of its functional stores earn a good revenue to boost the startup financials, between Rs 15 lakh per month to Rs 30 lakh per month and are earning good profit on unit economics level.
