When Rajesh Keerthi, Chief Finance Officer and Director of Coimbatore’s online grocery portal onlystaples.com, set up the eCommerce store for grocery, he soon realised that older persons like his mother preferred the offline route to shop.

So Rajesh decided to offer both online and offline shopping service. Thus was born the assisted shopping kiosk (ASK) concept, he told BusinessLine.

Launching the kiosk at Daisy Residency Apartment here and claiming it to be the first of its kind in the country, he said, “We will be launching such kiosks in 150 apartments across the city in the first phase, before moving across to Chennai and Bangalore.”

The investment on each of these kiosks is estimated at ₹2 lakh.

ASK is expected to serve more than 15,000 households in Coimbatore. “There will be one permanent kiosk in every apartment, which will act as an assistant for every household’s spending needs.

Customers who route their purchase through us will be able to save an additonal 10 per cent,” he said.

The highlights of ASK is home delivery, its tie-up with leading retail brands for grocery, organic products, consumer durables, apparels, caterers etc.

The user can also book flight tickets and hotel accommodation, get to know about apartment renting and selling, book taxi, buy mobile phones, furniture, automobile, jewellery and seek utility services as well.

Apartment residents will get access to buy anything they need within their premises. There will be exclusive product deals, he said and added that the effort is aimed at offering assisted and easy access to order online.

Notwithstanding purchase, the customer will also be able to return the goods and products, if found unsatisfactory. “Demonetisation has helped us grow,” he said in reply to a query.