<div>While Flipkart flip flops over going app-only and abandoning its website, food ordering startup Faasos has decided to take advantage of the buzz around app-onlyness and just do it, so to speak. Flipkart is apparently still trying to figure out whether this works for them, considering high value orders seem to be placed more frequently from the website and going app-only also leaves out new customers who haven’t yet begun to use many apps.</div><div> </div><div>But Faasos claims 97 per cent of its orders come from mobiles, so it loses little by pulling the shutters down on its website. The app service claims it has 800,000 downloads expects to hit a million downloads in a couple of weeks. It works across the top 10 cities in India -- Mumbai, Gurgaon, Delhi, Pune, Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Indore. But Revant Bhate, head of marketing for Faasos says it isn’t just these cities: “Surprisingly, even tier 2 cities have shown tremendous traction for ordering via the app which led to 97% of our delivery sales coming from the mobile app.”</div><div> </div><div>Unlike for Flipkart, food ordering will be more of an impulse and spur-of-the-moment purchase and it would be natural enough to order from a mobile. It’s an attractive enough app and certainly a better experience than a website. “It is not just a representation of the website offering, but the entire proposition only works best on the app” says Revant. “Imagine the consumer seeing a different menu, during breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner at every location that (s)he is present in along with a dynamic estimated delivery time based on the product you order and how far one is from the delivery location. Faasos has built this propriety technology in-house and is the world’s first Food business to provide these features real time.</div><div> </div><div>All this is not possible when someone orders via a phone call or through a website.” The business has recently expanded its offerings and is one of the few breakfast delivering services across India. The company has recently started delivering tea with snacks in Mumbai, a service that will soon be rolled out in Pune and Bangalore as well. In terms of expansion in Tier 2 cities, Faasos has started in Indore and Baroda.</div><div> </div><div>Faasos is essentially a hyper-local food-on-demand service started in 2011. It received Series A from Sequoia Capital in FY2012 and Series B by Lightbox Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Innoven Capital in FY2015.</div>
BW Reporters
Mala Bhargava has been writing on technology well before the advent of internet in Indians and before CDs made their way into computers. Mala writes on technology, social media, startups and fitness. A trained psychologist, she claims that her understanding of psychology helps her understand the human side of technology.
