Local online grocery store Chaldal is expanding at a faster clip outside of Dhaka to cater to customers who have become habituated with digital shopping throughout the coronavirus pandemic.

In the past few months, it expanded its footprint in two cities: It started its operation in Khulna on November 10 and in Sylhet on January 18, taking the number of big cities covered by the company to six.

It expanded to Chattogram in March last year, Jashore in April and Narayanganj towards the end of 2020. It has partial operations in Tangail and Cox's Bazar.

"We are now prioritising expansions due to the increased demand for online purchase across the country," Waseem Alim, chief executive officer of Chaldal, told The Daily Star.

The company plans to roll out its operation in Rajshahi, Gazipur, Mymensingh and Cumilla within a few weeks as it looks to establish its presence in 15-20 districts by 2022.

"We have gained the confidence that if we invest outside of Dhaka, we will be able to attain profitability by a year," said Alim.

In Bangladesh, customers are more aware of online shopping and feel more confident now than ever. The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated e-commerce.

"We could expand at a faster pace, but the development of skilled workforce takes time. We don't want to go for any expansion without skilled employees since there are concerns about the safety and security of customers," said Alim.

Chaldal has 25 delivery warehouses in six cities. Of them, 17 are in Dhaka and eight are outside of the capital. It wants to lift the number of warehouses across the country to 100 by 2022.

How the pandemic has turbocharged its growth can be inferred from the increase in the number of orders placed on the site.

Before the crisis, it used to make 2,500 deliveries daily on average. It has increased to around 12,000 deliveries now driven by the growing demand for home delivery for groceries, hygiene products and other consumer staples.

Its revenue clocked more than 200 per cent growth in 2020 and 65 per cent in 2021.

Before March 2020, when the pandemic hit the country, Chaldal was a team of around 950 people. By the end of 2020, it grew to 1,700 and in 2021, Chaldal hired another 1,000. Currently, it employs around 3,000 employees.

About 600 employees work at its office in Sheikh Hasina Software Technology Park in Jashore, making it the largest employer in hi-tech parks in Bangladesh.

"Jobs are being created not only for the delivery segment. Many graduates are now working with us in the technology and customers care services," Alim said.

Now, customers can select from more than 15,000 different products at Chaldal, which is the second-largest grocery operator and the largest e-grocery company in Bangladesh after retail chain giant Shwapno.

Alim credits pricing for another reason for the growth spurt of Chaldal.

"We can deliver some products at lower than the market price since we buy them in bulk. However, it does not mean we sell products without making any profit."

The recent expansion of Chaldal follows its announcement in September last year of raising $10 million. It has raised $28 million to $30 million since its inception in 2013.

Generally, most of the online platforms in Bangladesh receive orders from customers and deliver products from the warehouses of the suppliers. But Chaldal has taken a different approach.

It delivers products from its own warehouses instead of retail stores or the warehouses of suppliers, merchants or producers.

For that, it utilised two layers of warehouses. One was used to source products from suppliers and the other was used to make the delivery to end customers.

"This model helps us deliver products quickly as there are a number of micro-warehouses in a city," said an executive of the company.

Chaldal has recently added another layer to its warehouse system as it introduced an "export warehouse" in order to serve customers from outside of Dhaka. It recently opened such a warehouse spread over 70,000 square feet of area in Savar.

The company acquired e-pharmacy startup BanglaMeds recently.