26-year-old Aizuddin Fakhri (pictured) wants to take a crack at changing at where and how do you do your daily shopping – by opening Brunei’s only active online grocery store.
First opened for business on April 19, Kadairuncit.com offers more than 400 items across nine main categories including fresh produce, beverages, snacks along with your staples like rice, sugar and cooking oil.
“We’ll do the heavy lifting for you,” says the IT professional, who is banking primarily on providing convenience for customers, who’d rather shop from the comfort of their homes; whether its because they’re cut short on time or are trying to avoid long waiting lines at the cashier during payday.
Payments can be made via any Mastercard, Visa and Amex debit or credit card, with the website made safe through SSL – a method of encryption and authentication that ensures that information is only sent after being converted into a secure code. However those without access to cards can choose to pay when their items are delivered instead.
“If they place their orders before 11am, our customers can choose to have same day delivery,” said the 26 year-old, who added that at checkout customers have the option of picking their delivery time, with refrigerated and frozen items kept chilled during transport. Delivery is a dollar for Kuala Belait, $1.50 for Seria and $2.00 for Lumut.
Kadairuncit is also looking to expand with a gadget department – housing new and used products from third party sellers and vendors, as well as continuing to expand their inventory to more comprehensively include the whole range expected from a traditional supermarket.
A quick price comparison of current prices indicate the online platform’s prices to be very similar to smaller retail stores or mini-marts – known colloquially in Malay as kadai runcit – and are currently able to match several larger retail supermarkets and department stores on a few, but not all items.
Aizuddin acknowledges that building trust with customers on their service is overriding factor that will allow the online platform to succeed, considering the offline market is fairly established and saturated – with almost every kampong in the Sultanate already having at least one physical kadai runcit of their own.
“Right now, since we are newly launched, we are focused on making sure our delivery and logistics is in place; giving the best service that we can, and to make sure we learn from our mistakes,” he added. “And as we grow we can continue to offer better deals, prices and more items.”
Visit the store at www.kadairuncit.com and follow @kadairuncit.com on Instagram and Facebook for updates including their expansion to Brunei-Muara.
