Experience is the best teacher and the worst experience usually teaches the best lesson. This holds true for Indian entrepreneurs Sagar Chandiramani, Jatin Sharma and Monish Chandiramani, founders of Yeepeey – an e-grocery platform in Dubai.

Frustration over their online grocery shopping experience in the UAE – especially delivery charges on smaller purchases and limited grocery options on digital platforms – drove the trio to establish their own start-up.

“It was like hitting against the wall … there were not many options. Even though it is convenient, consumers still do not like to pay extra mark-ups over and above the price displayed in grocery shops … [as well as] the exorbitant delivery fee,” Mr Sagar, 29, a chartered accountant, tells The National.

“We detected a potential gap in the flourishing e-commerce market and we decided to bridge it through Yeepeey.”

The founders came up with the concept in December 2019, a few months before the coronavirus outbreak that fuelled a surge in demand for online shopping.

However, it would take them 10 months to develop and test the app and mobilise funds before they did a soft launch in November on both the Android and iOS operating systems. It was officially unveiled to the wider public in February.

“It is always easier said than done. Many people suggested to us an earlier launch to capture the new online market created during the Covid-19 pandemic … but we took our time to ensure that our product is feasible and will not crash if there is huge traffic,” says Monish, 25, who holds a master’s degree in business administration with a speciality in finance.

“Moreover, the soft launch allowed us to gather valuable feedback from actual users that helped us to make our offerings more direct by reducing the number of clicks and adding more items to the directory.”

Yeepeey, which claims to offer the same promotions and discounts available in the physical shops, promises delivery within 30 to 45 minutes.

The company allows users to shop from neighbourhood grocers, supermarkets and hypermarkets.

It also collects and delivers items to customers directly and, in some cases, allows orders to be fulfilled by the merchants on their own.

“Our business model is a fine mix of both. These aspects are decided at the time of signing the agreement with the merchant to avoid confusion,” says Mr Sagar.

Yeepeey’s launch also came at an opportune time as e-commerce became more popular after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The sector will account for more than half of the global retail sector’s growth – an expansion of about $1.4 trillion – in the next five years, according to Euromonitor International.

In its January report, Mastercard said up to 30 per cent of the Covid-related surge in e-commerce spending would be a permanent feature in the share of total retail spending in the Middle East and Africa region.

The payments company said 73 per cent of consumers in the region were shopping more online than they did before the pandemic.

Within a short span of three months, Yeepeey now has more than 50 small and big merchants on its platform and serves about 50 districts in Dubai, including Business Bay, Al Barsha, Jumeirah Lakes Towers, Jumeirah Beach Residence, Dubai Silicon Oasis, Downtown Dubai, Bur Dubai, Al Karama, The Greens, The Lakes and Emirates Hills.

The start-up, which allows customers to choose from more than 50,000 items in its grocery catalogue, aims to increase the number of merchants on its platform to 150 by the end of the third quarter of this year.

The founders are keen to expand into Abu Dhabi, Sharjah and other emirates this year but have put regional expansion plans on ice.

“We have dedicated 2021 to the UAE. We will spend time and resources to stabilise our operations and strengthen our base. We will enter Saudi Arabia in the third quarter [of next year],” says Mr Sharma.

“Saudi Arabia is a big market and there is demand for our services … but we believe in taking small but right steps. We are here to stay for the long-term, so we do not want to clutter things by making rash decisions.”

The company also intends to enter either Bahrain or Kuwait by the end of 2023 or early 2024, says Mr Sharma.

Yeepeey’s founders are long-term residents of Dubai and worked with Ritman, another business-to-business FinTech in the emirate, before setting up their own venture.

Founded with a modest investment of $150,000, Yeepeey is now looking to raise up to $1.5 million from investors in the UAE.

“We are already working on it and it will take few more weeks before we make an official announcement,” says Mr Sagar.

The money will be used to fund marketing activities, hire more staff and optimise the app by adding more user-friendly tools and new shopping verticals such as fresh meat, stationery, flowers, cakes and confectionery.

Yeepeey started operations with only five people but now has 18 employees. The founders hope to have a workforce of 35 by the end of the year.

“We will not have a very large team but we need to hire some industry specialists who are tech-savvy and come with no dearth of ideas,” says Mr Sagar. “We prefer developing everything in-house and are not relying on outsourcing for anything.”

The start-up intends to hire talent in areas such as merchant acquisition, sales, marketing and user retention and experience.

The average number of new users registering with the platform every day stands at about 150. The platform also receives about 100 orders every day.

“Thus far, the new users are coming through referrals and our offline and digital marketing. Now, we are getting more aggressive with marketing and we expect the number of daily orders to rise to 500 or 600 a day by the end of this year,” says Mr Sagar.

“Business is surging really fast and daily orders could easily rise to 1,000 a day very soon.”

Yeepeey aims to be profitable by the end of the second quarter of next year and its founders are open to reducing their stake.

“We are open for an exit but not now. We will explore the option when we are established and have proven our ideas … may be somewhere five years down the line,” says Mr Sharma.

Yeepeey, a Dubai-based homegrown delivery app, has started online ordering and grocery delivery across Dubai from Ansar Group’s Karama flagship store, Ansar Gallery.
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Through the Yeepeey app, customers can now order their favorite products from Ansar Gallery without having to pay any delivery fee or mark-ups over in-store prices and get the orders delivered in minutes depending upon their location.

“Being the first partner to go-live with Ansar Gallery for grocery delivery is a great milestone for Yeepeey in its first year of operations and we’re extremely thrilled to start & grow this partnersh

Monish Chandiramani, Co-founder & CEO Yeepeey

Mr. Said Hamid Mansouri D.G.M of Ansar Group said that “The world has seen a change in consumer habits and the growth in ‘quick’ grocery delivery and as one of the most preferred hypermarkets in the UAE, it was important we extend that service to our customers who may not want to shop in-store but shop online, We respect the customers as individuals and serve the customer to their maximum satisfaction as we say Customer Satisfaction is Our Goal who are the driving force behind our success and growth.”

“We provide our customers promotions and offers every week & during the holy month of Ramadan, Ansar Gallery offers less than cost prices on supermarket products as we believe Sharing is Caring. We do have exclusive Ahlan Ramadan offers in-store for a wide range of household, Furniture & carpet items which are sourced from Turkey, Italy, Belgium, Iran etc. Keeping this objective in mind, we’re excited to partner with Yeepeey which is a startup that focuses on customer centricity and grocery delivery in minutes and our customers will now be able to have our products delivered to them at their doorstep,” added Mr.  Mansouri.

Dubai, United Arab Emirates: The Homegrown pocket friendly app, yeepeey launched in February 2021 to deliver groceries from your neighborhood stores at in-store prices has now expanded its operation to deliver more than just groceries at your doorstep. 

The yeepeey App

In a major app uplift, yeepeey has added six new verticals to include Flower Shops, Pet Stores, Organic Shops, Specialty Stores, Stationary Shops & Mobile Bill Recharges. 

Now Dubai residents can access all these stores in their neighbourhood and have their orders delivered at in-store prices adjusted with real time discounts. 

Yeepeey has also integrated loyalty points in the app wherein, every time you make a purchase, you will earn points and can redeem them towards your future purchases.

Currently, yeepeey has tied up with 60 grocery stores & supermarkets, 6 Flower Shops, 3 Pet Stores, 6 Organic Shops, 2 Specialty Stores, 3 Stationary Shops & Mobile Bill Recharges. It is currently servicing all over Dubai and Mobile Bill Recharges are all across Dubai

Some of the prominent names associated with yeepeey now include Almaya Group, Union Coop Hypermarkets, KP Mart amongst others. 

Monish Chandiramani, Co-founder of yeepeey says, “Expanding into other verticals was always something we were going to do where we can create a digital ecosystem which acts as a one-stop shop for all your daily essentials at your fingertips. With the lowest convenience fees in the market coupled with in-store prices & promotions without additional markups makes yeepeey a crowd favourite. We are now looking to expand into the rest of UAE by Q2 and other GCC countries by Q3 2023.”

The yeepeey App is available to download at Apple App Store, Play Store and Huawei App Gallery.

The Homegrown pocket friendly app, yeepeey launched in February 2021 to deliver groceries from your neighborhood stores at in-store prices has now expanded its operation to deliver more than just groceries at your doorstep. 

In a major app uplift, yeepeey has added six new verticals to include Flower Shops, Pet Stores, Organic Shops, Specialty Stores, Stationary Shops & Mobile Bill Recharges. 

Now Dubai residents can access all these stores in their neighbourhood and have their orders delivered at in-store prices adjusted with real time discounts. 

Yeepeey has also integrated loyalty points in the app wherein, every time you make a purchase, you will earn points and can redeem them towards your future purchases.

Currently, yeepeey has tied up with 60 grocery stores & supermarkets, 6 Flower Shops, 3 Pet Stores, 6 Organic Shops, 2 Specialty Stores, 3 Stationary Shops & Mobile Bill Recharges. It is currently servicing all over Dubai and Mobile Bill Recharges are all across Dubai

Some of the prominent names associated with yeepeey now include Almaya Group, Union Coop Hypermarkets, KP Mart amongst others. 

Monish Chandiramani, Co-founder of yeepeey says, “Expanding into other verticals was always something we were going to do where we can create a digital ecosystem which acts as a one-stop shop for all your daily essentials at your fingertips. With the lowest convenience fees in the market coupled with in-store prices & promotions without additional markups makes yeepeey a crowd favourite. We are now looking to expand into the rest of UAE by Q2 and other GCC countries by Q3 2023.”

The yeepeey App is available to download at Apple App Store, Play Store and Huawei App Gallery.

Dubai: The delivery app Yeepeey has expanded its network through a tie up with the supermarket operator Ansar Group. The delivery platform will offer Dubai-wide coverage through Ansar Gallery, the group’s flagship store, in Karama.

The Ansar Gallery features 15,000 products and comes with an affordable price mix. Customers will not have to pay any delivery fee or mark-ups over in-store prices.

“Being the first partner to go-live with Ansar Gallery for grocery delivery is a great milestone for Yeepeey in its first year of operations,” said Monish Chandiramani, co-founder and CEO of Yeepeey.

According to Hamid Mansouri, Deputy General Manager of Ansar Group, “The world has seen a change in consumer habits and the growth in ‘quick’ grocery delivery. It was important we extend that service to our customers who may not want to shop in-store but shop online.”

Yeepeey is currently live across Dubai with more than 75 merchants with eight verticals including groceries, pet care, organic food, fresh fruits and vegetables, stationery, specialty shops, and bill payments.

In this episode of Dubai Works, we’re joined by Monish Chandiramani, Co-founders and CEO of Yeepeey. It’s an online application that deals in grocery, essentials and confectionery shopping through its platforms and promised delivery within 30 to 45 minutes. It began 6 months ago.

What makes Yeepeey stand out among the other delivery apps in the country is that it aims for delivery within 30 to 45 minutes, there are no mark-up prices for the products, the delivery fee is 1/3 of what others would charge or sometimes even free, and it showcases the promotions of the store as well as their own

While doing his MBA in a Dubai university, he realised that online delivery apps mark-up the prices of products and charge high delivery fees, which sparked his and his partner’s interest to create a more affordable online shopping platform.

The app actually serves as a real-time feedback and inventory checker for stores. There are 3 Yeepeey apps, one for customers, one for delivery, and one for the stores. The stores would use their app to update their inventory; what prices have changed and what has gone out of stock. The app does however inform the customer in real-time if an item went out of stock and offers replacement products. At the end of the shopping journey, the app requests feedback which is then automatically sent to the store.

Although Yeepeey has been online for 6 months only, it has over 10,000 downloads and hosts giant stores like Al Maya and Union-Coop

Most of the delivery is carried out by the stores themselves on cycles which guarantee speedy delivery and reduce the carbon footprint. Yeepeey is currently only live in Dubai but is opening up in Abu Dhabi this December and moving to northern emirates afterwards.