“Bohri galli” or “Bohriali” is an area of Bohri traders you can find in many towns and cities in India for past 100years!
Growing up in India, I always felt Bohri Ali was like Treasure Island where you can find supplies, handcrafted crockery, lamps, art and craft supplies and more with a very friendly quick and reliable service of the knowledgeable shopkeepers!
So when, recently I discovered that the magic of BohriAli can be experienced in the virtual world through online shopping, I was delighted to know more about them!
So, let’s find out more about bohriali.com , in conversation with Yusuf Hakim and Huzefas Hakim
- Tell us, how this idea of online Bohriali got started?
Huzefas has always been going to his father’s shop since childhood, just to see and feel the experience of working in the shop first hand. Our shop is 135 years old and its almost like an institution to us and also our customers.
Just like generations after generations have been running our business, generations of customers have been coming to us.
A couple of years back, my brother Yusuf related his experience of how even the industries value this reputation and business acumen of shops like ours. Coupled with the e-commerce trend in the country, we thought together as to why not make our shops go online and reach out to the customers rather than them reaching out to us! And that’s how the first seeds of the BohriAli dream were sown.
- How is it different than any other marketplaces out there?
All the shops on board with us are almost within a radius of 1 km. They are reputed businesses established many years ago and our very successful and respected. When we get an online order, 95% of our orders are shipped out the same day because all the material is in stock in our shops. This gives us a very good geographical advantage as of today. Along with that, not only will you get our products delivered to you, but you will be purchasing them at the right cost. BohriALi is famous for getting the right thing at the right cost. We also have a technical support team that chats online with the customers or on the telephone and gives them the right advice when they are in doubt. Some of our customers are big fans of our technical support. This is only possible because we have the right experienced businessmen helping us out.
- What are some of the unique things that we find on your platform?
Our offline stores have always had reputation for excellent customer service, product knowledge, DIY kits for all kinds of TLC work and variety of arts and craft supplies product; which we have implemented in our online portal too.
The technical support that you get on our website, you will not get anywhere on an amazon or a flipkart. Our goal is to recreate the same experience that one gets when he visits our stores physically on bohriali.com. And e-commerce is the way to go if you want to reach out to more markets, more consumers and more locations. There are a number of unique products on our website ranging from adhesives, furniture fittings, LED Lights, Hardware, Fixing Systems, Material Handling equipment, Hand tools, Power tools and much more.
We have a special DIY section where we have made a few ‘DIY kits’ which consumers can use to do a number of easy jobs like wood polishing etc. our kits are designed to give the user whatever he needs to do the job and at 1/5th the cost. On our Blog, all the information needed to complete the project is present with illustrations, videos and much more!
Artists and art hobbies are a very important focus area for us. We have a variety of products, which are needed by artists and people who have art and craft hobbies. You can choose whatever you want online on our portal and it will reach you no matter where you are in the country.
- About the founders and their vision for this venture.
We are three brothers who have grown up together in one house and have studied in different fields. Yusuf and Burhanuddin are Mechanical Engineers by profession. Burhanuddin is still in fourth year Mechanical Engineering. I am a commerce graduate. Going forward we will be adding more verticals to bohriali.com, and make it a one stop shopping stop users. We aim to make this a life-cycle business like our shops where we have made customers over the years by listening to them and giving them exactly what they need for their application. We aim to bring this reputation and respect that we have in our stores, online through bohriali.com and take BohriAli to the world on the e-commerce highway.
We are proud to Welcome BohriAli.com as our partners on board, which means our Creative Community Members will get some awesome offers for purchase of craft supplies from them on going basis!
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