Inspired partially by the model of Uber, marketing junior Tirth Shah and Live-O-Store IT head Varun Parikh created a mobile app to match businesses and customers with part-time delivery workers.
When Shah was injured in a car accident before coming to the University, fulfilling basic needs such as buying groceries became difficult. With limited mobility during recovery, he had to rely on delivery services to bring goods to his home. Orders often did not arrive the same day and were expensive.
“I had a lot of problems getting around places … and people charged ridiculous amounts [for delivery],” Shah said. “I didn’t want any other student to ever have a problem like that.”
Shah sought a way to make home delivery services faster and cheaper. Through studying at the University, he has gained helpful knowledge on marketing from programs and guest speakers held by the business fraternity Alpha Kappa Psi and classes with Department of Marketing senior instructor Thomas Karam.
When a user of the Live-O-Store app places an order to a local business, the delivery workers are alerted and can choose to accept the job and drive the goods to their destination. Customers are charged a 5 percent fee for the service. Restaurant table reservations and daily delivery subscription services are also being offered.
“We don’t charge [businesses] at all on one condition: that every month they donate a certain amount of their goods and services to people in need,” Shah said. “As long as they keep doing that, we will deliver for free.”
Shah runs Live-O-Store remotely while at the University via Skype and email with employees and business partners in India.
The Live-O-Store’s delivery services are being tested in Shah’s hometown of Ahmedabad in the western Indian state of Gujarat. According to the business’ website, in the two weeks since the app’s launch about 250 businesses have joined, offering over 22,000 products and covering almost the entire city, which is the one of the most populous in India.
India has the second largest number of Internet users after China, with online access expanding rapidly throughout the populace. The Internet and Mobile Association of India projects that the number of Indians online will have increased from 402 million in December 2015 to 462 million by June 2016. By that point, Live-O-Store will have expanded to two more cities in Gujarat.
“We are picking the top twenty cities in India as our target for the next two years.” Shah said.
Most of the participating businesses are restaurants, cafes and grocery stores, Shah said. Live-O-Store plans to increase to 3,500 businesses, offering a wider variety of products for delivery in major cities by 2018, and expand internationally in the process.
“We plan to move to the UK and the US next.” Shah said.