GoDirect’s third and rather unique, counter-intuitive pillar for the eCommerce industry that thrives on a greater number of smaller-sized transactions is GoBulk. GoBulk takes grocery shopping back to the days of our grandparents where household supplies used to come in bulk pack sizes and would get stored in large containers, and there was a precise plan of using those supplies over a definitive span of time, factoring in the need v/s cost v/s quality equation.

GoBulk is a movement that envisions to intelligently encourage bulk purchases, promoting larger pack sizes with minimal, and no-frills printing eventually leading to a positive ripple effect across the entire supply chain. Sellers would spend lesser time, & lesser resources on packaging, the number of trips by various logistics partners per period i.e. week, month or year would substantially reduce. Customers would get bigger storage containers, fresher and better quality produce leading to more planned purchases, better predictability in the kitchen, and lesser single-use plastic to disposal.

Let’s quickly diagnose the root-cause of how and when grocery shopping shifted from this highly efficient, and sustainable practice of buying things in their raw form i.e. buying in bulk. Our analysis points to these three macro societal shifts in the last 100 or so years:

• Rapid Urbanization: The movement of population from villages to cities put them further from the source of production and required smaller pack sizes for ease of transportation and affordable prices. This was amplified with the smaller retail and home infrastructure, which required manageable pack sizes due to limited shelf space which eventually altered the consumption habits of the population, which were more tuned to repeated purchases. GoDirect’s third pillar i.e. GoBulk envisions to change this by consciously promoting bigger pack sizes, sourced directly from the source so that urban clusters start shifting a part of their urban food habits towards more sustainable options.
• Diversification of Food Habits: Food habits have a direct correlation to what and how we buy the requisite raw materials. As food habits evolve, so does our buying pattern. In older times, food habits were simpler and centered majorly around what was grown/available in the region where the population lived. For example: people living in wheat/rice growing belt would find numerous ways of incorporating those in their eating and drinking habits. Similarly, folks living around water bodies would incorporate fish and other sea food as their staple.