Online chai ordering in Mumbai

ChotuChaiWala.com brought street chai to the office desk: order Mumbai's cutting chai online and have it delivered by the very street vendors who make it, on a weekly or monthly subscription — or a one-time order.

The initiative came from Zepo, an Indian ecommerce website-building platform that had been curious about Mumbai's chaiwalas. In May 2014, the company set up an online store for four tea vendors in Bandra within a day, adding the products and payment features to make it fully functional. According to an Inc42 profile of the startup, the store — jointly owned by the four vendors and managed by Zepo — drew 42 orders in its first two weeks.

The experiment was a small, human one: street vendors reaching office workers who could never slip out for a chai break, through the same ecommerce tools as any other shop.

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