Creator’s Blurb: Ramadhan is now upon us and, sadly, we received’t be having fun with our yearly bazaars because of COVID-19 and the MCO. It’s undoubtedly for the higher, however one can’t assist however miss the odor of scrumptious meals wafting by the air and coming residence with luggage full of assorted meals and drinks.

On April 5, Iskandar
had a chat together with his father in regards to the present scenario and the way it will have an effect on
small companies and the B40, who’re often a part of these Ramadhan bazaars.

After their
discussions, Iskandar got here up with an thought that might assist. What he had in thoughts
was an e-bazaar the place these sellers might checklist their profiles and merchandise to
promote.

In just one day, he and his fiancée created 9 Bazaar Rakyat websites (1 essential web site and eight state websites for Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Kedah, Perak, Johor, Putrajaya, Melaka, and Negeri Sembilan).

By April 6, they’d
already made a social media put up to place Bazaar Rakyat as Malaysia’s first
e-bazaar with the #bazaarfromhome tagline.

Bazaar Rakyat isn’t
simply restricted to meals and drinks both; on the platform, small companies can
promote numerous merchandise like baju raya, footwear, purses, devices, and
even digital home equipment.

Iskandar described the
platform as one which’s much like Lazada or Shopee with the component of
foodpanda and GrabFood.

Setting The
Foundations

Whereas it was Iskandar
and his fiancée who created the websites, it nonetheless took a complete crew of 17 to
totally develop their plans.

Because the CEO of AiM
Applied sciences, a web site and cellular app growing firm, Iskandar was in a position to
leverage on their current server and instruments, so organising Bazaar Rakyat price
them lower than RM150.

Should you have been to go to
the web site, you’d discover that it’s acknowledged there are greater than 1,200 distributors
registered, however he shared that the variety of those that have really accomplished
their retailer setup is round 300 to 500 throughout eight states.

These of us who’ve
been to Ramadhan bazaars are most likely no stranger to the occasional
stomachaches that may come from shopping for from unfamiliar F&B distributors.

With that in thoughts, I
simply needed to ask Iskandar how we might guarantee meals security when shopping for on Bazaar
Rakyat.

He replied, “In this MCO
state, we’d not be capable to bodily test on their retailer or enterprise
premise(s), due to this fact we hand out the SOP of security and hygiene as our digital
directions. In any case of poisoning/accidents on the meals, the distributors have
to be accountable.”

Once you click on on a
product itemizing on the location, you’ll be capable to clearly see the enterprise behind
it, so that you’re not simply shopping for from some contactless profile.

For the supply
portion of this e-bazaar, Iskandar is working with Bungkusit, MatRunner, and
MrSpeedy, and he’s additionally in talks with Pickupp, MatDespatch, ResQ, and
ZeptoExpress to assist the distributors with supply to clients.

Apart from Bungkusit
who does on-demand supply, the opposite service suppliers who’re already onboard
may have a cut-off time for his or her deliverymen to fulfil food and drinks orders
earlier than buka puasa time.

The distributors might be
those in command of organising supply and making use of the fees that they
deem match for his or her clients.

Spoilt For Selection

Scrolling by
their web site, I’m not stunned to see that the majority of merchandise fall beneath
F&B. I’ve seen just a few non-F&B distributors in bodily Ramadhan bazaars
earlier than, however I don’t assume folks would sometimes store for such merchandise there.

Until maybe you’ve
run out of time to purchase your Hari Raya garments, in fact.

Out of the eight states
that Bazaar Rakyat caters to, Melaka, Kedah and Perak have a smaller variety of
F&B distributors, so for those who’re residing within the different states, take into account your self
extra spoilt for selection.

Take Selangor, for
instance, with its 308 F&B gadgets to select from. One factor to notice is that for
a perfect supply velocity and price, you need to choose to filter the companies
(beneath the ‘kedai-kedai’ tab) to search out ones which can be inside 15-20km away
out of your deal with.

You may nonetheless be
in a position to order from retailers additional away, however Iskandar shared that the supply
charges incurred will in fact be increased.

Sadly, this
means you won’t be capable to get that kuih you have been eyeing on the location earlier,
although you’ll nonetheless have selections (except you reside in the midst of nowhere,
like I do).

After you’ve added the
gadgets to your cart, you may checkout the place you’ll be prompted to fill in your
private particulars.

Your supply payment will
be robotically calculated when you’ve crammed in your deal with. Apart from
filtering your location, I’d say it’s a reasonably customary e-commerce expertise,
and the location isn’t overly difficult to navigate.

Hopefully we’ll be
seeing enhancements made to the location alongside the way in which, as Iskandar views this
initiative as a long-term one.

“We’re in place to
exchange conventional Ramadhan bazaars and pasar,” he mentioned, however there are
a few issues they’d must first sort out.

The primary could be
getting authorities help to assist them of their mission to resurrect the
financial system and assist different SMEs, and the second could be onboarding as many
supply service suppliers as potential throughout Malaysia to make the merchandise
extra accessible.

Backside Line: If you realize me, chances are high that you just’ll know that I can rely the variety of instances I’ve shopped on-line on one hand. Nevertheless, I’m slowly warming as much as the thought of F&B e-commerce notably, because the thought of consuming one thing greater than homecooked meals is moderately interesting.

• You’ll be able to learn extra about different Malaysian startups right here.

Featured Picture Credit score: Bazaar Rakyat