Fast growing Direct2Door eyes Colombo takeover

Since its start as a convenience service delivering vegetables to homes in selected neighborhoods of Colombo, Direct2Door has grown significantly over a very short time frame, with the service now available across the entirety of the Colombo district, as well as many of the suburbs of Greater Colombo. This is mainly in service of Direct2Door’s true calling to become an all-encompassing household concierge service from which Sri Lankan households can source each and every product via a single access point.

To date, Direct2Door’s growth plan has proven so successful that the seed funding it initially secured over the last few months has directly translated into a 7x increase in monthly revenue. In the same vein, the number of transactions it carries out has risen by 400%, with its active customer base also similarly growing by leaps and bounds.

In fact, Direct2Door is today much more than just a delivery solution, with the platform itself being able to connect and add value to both customers and vendors in many different and unique ways. For instance, by monitoring its entire delivery process up to order fulfillment, the system not only processes orders and invoices but also effectively acts as a fully-fledged CRM, inventory management and delivery management system, all of which was developed in-house by the Direct2Door team.

Furthermore, Direct2Door provides a number of very useful and easy-to-use techniques to monitor customer performance, with predictive analytics used to learn and suggest customer behaviors. It even utilizes customer segmentation to understand unique requirements related to specialized customer groups, which allows for the ability to cater to them accordingly. “We try to be one step ahead when it comes to understanding our customers specific requirement, we study and analyze their buying patterns and preference and give special offers accordingly”, reveals Direct2Door CEO Prashanth Premakumar.

From its beginnings in 2016, when its two young and entrepreneurial co-founders, Prashanth Premakumar and Thibadharshan Kandiah, first established an excellent convenience service providing weekly vegetables deliveries to households in Colombo, Direct2Door has expanded its capabilities and offerings quite significantly, now delivering in and around Colombo. This is a long way from Direct2Door’s start as a relatively simple business in the garage of one of its founder’s homes, with just one delivery rider, when operations were not too complicated and the emphasis was only on connecting its suppliers and customers on a one-to-one and just-in-time basis.

After its initial great reception from the market, Direct2Door soon expanded to cover a wide range of items, from groceries to seafood and meat and even many more products besides these. This is so much the case that Direct2Door has become the best solution available today when it comes to household essentials being delivered. Customers are particularly happy with Direct2Door because they enjoy access and convenience, freshness and high quality products and even special offers, discounts and wide range of readily available products delivered directly to their doorstep.

Even the vendors and suppliers who work with Direct2Door enjoy a number of unbeatable benefits. Direct2Door is new and direct channel to get one’s products to the customer’s doorstep, while also enabling a greater awareness of products as well as special offers, promotions and launches. These convenience factors for vendors and suppliers has resulted in the Direct2Door team receiving a steady stream of phone calls and e-mails from those wanting to promote and sell their products through the Direct2Door platform.

Direct2Door is also creating significant social impact since it works mainly with small time vendors based out of National Markets. Vendors are also equipped and trained by Direct2door team to become compatible with its systems so as to benefit from the largest increase in their daily sales possible.

Said Arumugam Yogaraja, a vendor from the National Market, “Direct2Door has made a big difference in our livelihoods. We saw more and more customers going towards the super markets in recent years and we were unable to compete with them, even when our quality was much higher than that of the supermarkets. But now, through Direct2Door, we are able to serve a wider range of customers.”

Following Direct2Door having won 2nd runner-up at the coveted Venture Engine 2016, the platform has also attracted significant seed funding from well-respected Angel investors from the Lankan Angel Network, including Ruwindhu Peiris, Arj Wignaraja and Dr. Kumudu Gunasekara. These experts have also brought in a vast pool of knowledge and experience which has been fully leverage by the Direct2Door team to fast track expansions over a very short period.

Commenting on why he believed in Direct2Door, investor Ruwindhu Peiris said: “What is most exciting about Direct2Door is the team behind the company. For example, the tools they have created, in particular their predictive analytics platform that greatly improves convenience and personalization for customers, is impressive.”

“What appealed to me about Direct2Door was that it was not a logistics company, it was not a grocery store, it was not a warehouse but it was a platform that enhances customer convenience—that with the right investment could become the leading personal concierge service in Sri Lanka,” added investor Dr. Kumudu Gunasekara.