Love your local store, but want to shop online? Now have your cake and eat it too.

The co-founders of ShopLyne. Photo credit: ShopLyne.

Six months ago, my favorite grocery store closed down. I felt abandoned. I loved its freshly pounded spices and aromatic rice that made all the difference to the meals at home. Then a neighbor came to my rescue.

She directed me to a hole-in-the-wall, family-run store from where she had been buying for 30 years. There was barely a board to announce its existence. The owner was a grandfatherly man in pajamas who took the grains out of a burly sack, measured the quantity carefully, and poured it into a bag – over a delightful conversation on why I was buying what I was. The stuff turned out to be first-rate.

Could I ever get the same experience online? Could an ecommerce firm offer me the same knowledge, advice, and warmth that I got from “Lalaji” – a term for many a local shopkeeper in India?

Yes, if Mumbai-based ShopLyne can help it. A mobile-only marketplace, the app promises to let you buy products you love from the stores you trust.

“In a city where you are constantly bombarded with brand messaging and visuals, it’s easy to overlook your local stores that actually have everything you need,” says co-founder Amit Mehta. ShopLyne curates these stores.

It’s a bit of a shopping boulevard. You can get clued in on Mumbai’s shopping scene, and grab some cool deals and discounts. The product categories it lays out include beauty and cosmetics, personal grooming, gadget accessories and electronics, home décor, fitness and nutrition, sports, pet essentials, and stationery.

But its USP lies in bringing some key features of offline retailing – like trust, familiarity, and sense of community – to the mobile shopping experience. Most importantly, human-to-human contact.

The startup was founded in October last year by a bunch of advertizing and media professionals – Amit, Deepak Dhingra, Pallavi Dhingra, Malvika Tegta, and Uttarika Kumaran.

They had launched another product in 2012 called Real Reviews. It was a video review platform where the actual consumer talked about his or her user experience to help other consumers decide what to buy. It is still running, but monetization is tricky because they want to keep the reviews and reviewers authentic.

ShopLyne evolved from the team’s experience with Real Reviews. Last October, they launched the Android app on Google Play store for a pilot run. Since then, they have been quietly onboarding stores, adding products, and gathering feedback from early adopters to refine the app.

In four months, the app has onboarded 80 local stores in Mumbai and seen 600 downloads, say the founders. ShopLyne plans to tie up with 200 local sellers in Mumbai in the next three months.

For the faceless seller

Bandra, Bombay. Photo credit: Satish Krishnamurthy.

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