The company
WE Mart by Wanaw Enterprises is a chain of mini-supermarkets dedicated to serving the rural population with quality-rich fresh products at the best price. WE Mart operates on a unique hub-and-spoke model, distinguishing itself from traditional single-store setups. The hub store is strategically located in a central area where footfall is high, so it acts as the primary store for the location. The spoke stores extend the hub store's reach into nearby villages, ensuring accessibility for the rural population connecting more than 10 villages.
Currently, the hub store is live with four employees, and they are working on opening their spoke stores as part of their expansion strategy. WE Mart has also opened its next spoke store in January 2024, furthering their commitment to bringing quality products and a unique shopping experience to the doorstep of rural communities. The company's goal is to create a lasting impact by transforming the retail landscape in rural areas and fostering economic growth in these regions. However, their commitment goes beyond commerce. The entire WE Mart ecosystem is women-driven, from their founder to their employees. WE, in WE Mart, stands for Women Empowerment by Wanaw Enterprises, and they focus on increasing women empowerment in rural communities to elevate the role of women in the retail sector and contribute to a more inclusive and vibrant rural economy.
The challenge
For over two years of meticulous planning, the founders looked out for a technology partner capable of seamlessly digitizing all operations across their hub-and-spoke supermarkets. After deciding to go digital and set new standards for customer service in the rural market, they were sure to avoid manual operations from day one.
They sought an easy-to-use solution that could be used by anyone without intense training or established skills, all while ensuring operational efficiency and continuous growth. During their search, they discovered Zakya and were immediately inspired by its user-friendliness and technologically advanced array of features that aligned perfectly with their requirements.
The solution
The decision to choose Zakya from various software available locally was driven by Zakya's compatible features that seamlessly integrated essential elements based on the business needs of WE Mart.
"When we started using the Zakya demo, it stood out for its user-friendliness, and went beyond our expectations by offering more than the standard features like customized discounts, schemes, and referral programs, that we were looking for," added Subashini, Co-founder of WE Mart.
What surprised us was that, in other software we tried before Zakya, all these features often came as separate add-ons. But, Zakya offered a holistic solution within its core framework, and we are happy that we saved a lot on integrations."
In addition to billing, WE Mart had compelling reasons to adopt Zakya swiftly. Due to its proficiency in streamlining purchase processes from managing purchase bills, tracking GST payments, and offering a consolidated total, it significantly reduced the necessity for manual intervention. Notably, the system's capability to automatically identify overdue payments added an extra layer of convenience, enhancing the overall operational smoothness and efficiency.
Benefits and ROI
WE Mart was able to achieve super-fast billing by enabling barcode scanning for all their items.
Zakya seamlessly addressed all our requirements like raising purchase orders on time and maintaining optimum stocks to satisfy customer needs. It excelled in helping us configure prices without compromising margin and offering customized discounts, effectively attracting customers and boosting sales.
They were able to witness a major increase in footfall because of the quality shopping experience they were able to offer all their customers, which brought customers back. Within the first two months of setting up their hub store, they were able to witness 500% increase in month-on-month turnover with Zakya.
More so, WE Mart uses Zoho Books for all their accounting needs, which gets integrated with Zakya easily. "Zakya's integration with Zoho Books eliminated our requirement of having separate auditors; I do all filing processes by myself, from creating ledgers to filing GST, as Zakya makes everything happen seamlessly within the same ecosystem," added Subashini.
Looking forward
"Our strategic move of investing in the right technology laid the foundation to fulfill the company's mission of providing quality-rich and cost-efficient products to the rural community, all while delivering a shopping experience on par with urban counterparts. WE Mart is embracing digital solutions with mobile-based billing and online ordering systems. This not only brings convenience to our customers but also marks our commitment to bringing rural retail into the digital age", concluded Subashini.
The transformative impact Zakya has had on WE Mart's operational efficiency, cost management, and scalability is helping them implement their plans of opening spoke stores connecting different villages to the hub and managing all the operations in a single platform.
Zakya keeps the business running without being dependent on me, and allows me to take control of my store from anywhere at any time. Now, there's more time for me to focus on business growth; and this helped us open our next store within the first few months of implementing Zakya.
- Industry typeRetail
- Employees1 - 10 employees
- Type of businessSupermarket
- Previously Used Software