Syed Atif Hassan is an e-commerce growth professional with two decades of experience in business expansion and strategic growth. He spearheaded MyCart.pk (Pakistan’s leading B2C e-commerce platform) and MyWater.pk (App and IoT based water purifying company) from a single city to a nationwide presence.

Atif also has a strong background in international banking, having served National Bank of Abu Dhabi, ABN AMRO Bank and Dubai Islamic Bank. Presently, he is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of the B2B e-commerce startup, Ordercall

Following are the edited transcripts of a conversation BR Research had with CEO Ordercall:

BR Research: Please tell us a little bit about your professional background and your motivation behind launching the B2B e-commerce startup Ordercall?

Syed Atif Hassan: I am a startup specialist with a passion for tech, operations, and growth. Starting my career with the banking industry, I’ve worked for banks like ABN AMRO, Dubai Islamic, and National Bank of Abu Dhabi. I have also explored the fisheries industry, heading operations for Son of the Sea (Aqua Pearl), eventually founding my own company, Fishermen International. My first interaction with the e-commerce market was at MyCart.pk as Head of Operations, where I felt that substantial opportunities in the industry needed to be seized, and genuine challenges needed to be solved. Later, I was also given the opportunity to expand MyWater.pk from a single city to a nationwide presence as Chief Operating Officer.

I have been fortunate to get a front-row seat to the endeavors of the startup industry. During my early years in e-commerce, I found that a lot of our customers belonged to the B2B sector, especially small to medium sized kiryana stores, even though my company served the B2C market. It led me to the realization that Pakistani retailers use intelligent smartphones, transfer money via internet banking and chat on WhatsApp, but when it comes to business, rely on the same, run-of-the-mill pen-and-paper methods since the last century.

It was clear that the retail industry needed an uplift, and that’s why there’s Ordercall – a B2B marketplace on a mission to empower Pakistan’s retailers by modernizing conventional retail trade. With the power of tech, Ordercall delivers top quality products to kiryana storeowners across Karachi, enabling them to earn a sustainable livelihood, scale their business, and realize the aspirations of their family – with the exact same resources in hand.

During our early period of market study, we realized that approximately 60 percent of the income of an average Pakistani is spent on groceries - making it one of the most attractive opportunities in the Pakistani market. To us, the figure highlights the needs of Pakistan’s 2 million+ underserved retailers, eager to provide better value to their customers, and we are here to ensure exactly that.

BRR: So, how will you describe the core service offered by Ordercall and its business model?

SAH: Our goal is to make a retailer’s life easier and his business, more profitable. The number of middlemen between a local kiryana and a manufacturer makes it impossible for trade benefits and data insights to be passed onto him. At Ordercall, we bridge this gap and liberate the retailer from the exhaustive practice of booker-handling. Through our powerful ecosystem, we deliver a wide range of SKUs from 150+ brands with round-the-clock support, on the tap of a button, absolutely free.

Ordercall, in its core, believes that every business is not a startup, but every startup is a business, and hence it should eventually have a path towards profitability. As an approach, we focus on perfecting the basics and not giving into the glory of growth, prematurely. In our efforts to deepen our presence in Karachi, we have successfully built an operation that guarantees next-day delivery via cutting-edge tech and intelligent warehousing. Our supply chain efficiencies allow us to meet customer demand, every single time. We’re also Pakistan’s only B2B marketplace that allows retailers to pre-book a preferred slot from any of the next few days, providing them with greater convenience and control.

We’re building a marketplace for the new era of B2B retail. What used to take weeks, with Ordercall, takes only 24 hours. Whether you’re a large, medium, small or a newly-setup manufacturer, Ordercall App provides everyone an equal opportunity to get their products to the shelves of local retailers conveniently and consistently.

BRR: What is your geographical presence and where are your clients mostly from?

SAH: We deliver across Karachi, no matter the proximity. Every retailer is our priority, even ones located in the most remote areas of the city. We do not discriminate in our services and never will.

Contrary to popular belief, LMTs do not cover much of the metropolitan city. Digging deeper into consumer demographics, you realize that not many Karachiites have the resources to buy monthly groceries in one go. The larger population still relies on kiryana stores due to proximity, affordability and trust. As Ordercall, we’re building the same level of trust with our customers – ensuring that we always deliver on time, and we always deliver right.

BRR: Do you have any plans for expansion?

SAH: For now, it’s Karachi, with plans of expansion at the right time. We’re working towards deepening our roots before making any big moves.

Without a solid foundation, unbridled growth leads to inevitable failure. For us, raising capital is a milestone, but not an end-goal. The actual work begins after every round is raised, and therefore, we as startups must grow vertically before we decide to expand horizontally. In the long-run, this approach connotes higher chances of sustainable profitability.

BRR: How do you describe the current status of the retail industry and issues faced by retailers along with the potential solutions? How digitization of the retail network and conventional trade can help empower kiryana storeowners. Is this what Ordercall is also targeting?

SAH: The B2B retail industry is severely underserved and its supply chain, highly fragmented. There are inherent limitations, including lack of economies due to small scale operations and lower levels of functional expertise. For manufacturers, lack of concrete and reliable data is another obstacle in formulating a ‘fact-based’ product availability forecast and offering personalized trade incentives.

As an industry, we must embrace digitization to design business models that factor in local realities. Retailers should be given easy access to instant loans, insurance, payments, and POS systems to run their operations. As a multiplier effect, these facilities will not only benefit retailers but also boost the economy by promoting financial inclusion.

Ordercall is providing manufacturers with higher reach and retailers with more control over their procurement process by eliminating intermediaries and boundaries. The dynamics of conventional trade demand an average retailer to interact with several bookers and delivery persons every day. This exhaustive exercise not only hinders sales but also sabotages the ‘seller’ and ‘buyer’ mindsets a retailer switches between, when dealing with customers and order-bookers at the same time. It is also necessary to note that peak hours for kiryana stores vary – what sells the most in one locality early in the morning, does not necessarily sell at the same time in another. Therefore, the solution we offer to them has to be customizable. Ordercall App allows retailers to place orders whenever it fits their schedules, free from the pressure of limited accessibility of order bookers.

To sum up our philosophy: it’s the retailer who should be leading the purchase process, not the other way around.

BRR: How would you sum Ordercall’s impact on the industry, businesses and customers?

SAH: Through leading-edge tech, an intelligent supply chain and a powerful ecosystem, Ordercall is setting a new precedence for the e-commerce industry. We’re shifting the retail paradigm by extensively focusing on service quality and operations excellence, along with the hyper-growth needed to prosper in our industry.

Ordercall is a proud Pakistani startup, funded by local investors, with a strong product-to-market fit. We believe in sustainable, structured growth through optimization, experience and skill development.

Retailers lie at the core of every solution we offer. The path to business success cannot be carved without customer happiness, and therefore, we not only understand the ground realities of retailers’ lives, but also actively work towards making amends. Service quality and customer experience set us apart from the competition, and we are proud of the unwavering trust retailers have placed in us.

BRR: Where does the future of B2B and startup retail industries lie? What are the gains and the bottlenecks in the country?

SAH: With a massive young, English-speaking population and a fast-growing, tech-savvy middle class, Pakistan has the right ingredients to dominate any major industry in the world. Presently, all B2B marketplaces combined do not have the capacity to serve the needs of Pakistan’s retailers, or fully distribute the abundance of SKUs manufactured by brands. The retail market is worth over a $100 billion and for a reason: even if the world stops, like we saw during the COVID pandemic, you know your kiryana wala will remain open. On the behavioral end, retailers have also started to slowly gravitate towards digitization, which creates an opening for breakthroughs.

Of course, serving the world's fifth most populous country doesn’t come without challenges, but that doesn’t stop us. The startup industry is at the cusp of an inflection point, with opportunities to be realized now or never. With startups raising $284 million in first half of 2022, it’s safe to assume that the most transformational companies in Pakistan are being built today and are yet to come. For us, it’s only day one.

BRR: What are your plans going forward?

SAH: A mobile-based B2B marketplace is only the first leg of the broader ecosystem we’re looking to build. Ordercall is working on multiple verticals simultaneously, each one with an ambition to empower Pakistan’s small businesses. Through consistent product innovation, operational efficiency and service quality, we’re setting out to create a larger socioeconomic impact that not only benefits B2Bs but also touches the lives of B2C customers positively.

While serving our customers, we also understand that no great achievement is ever made alone. As a people-centric company, we work like a family and dream our dreams together. By embedding compassionate values into our workplace, we’re cultivating a culture of innovation, inspiration, empowerment and collaboration, to create a meaningful social impact to the society – uplifting communities, creating jobs and positively contributing to Pakistan’s economy.