OkCredit launches #PaasHaiToKhaasHai Campaign to garner support for Neighbourhood Shops

~The campaign encourages customers to buy from neighbourhood stores to keep their business thriving~

Mumbai, 28^th June 2021: On the eve of MSME Day, OkCredit has launched the #PaasHaiToKhaasHai digital campaign to underline the importance of neighbourhood stores in our daily lives and bring alive their old charm that has somewhat diminished with the onslaught of e-commerce. It encourages customers to keep buying from these stores to keep their business thriving even as they face stiff competition from online retailers.

The #PaasHaiToKhaasHai campaign is built on the premise that neighbourhood stores have been serving us for ages and have been the first port of call when shopping for our daily needs. It conveys that e-commerce firms simply cannot match the warmth and the comfort level customers feel at the neighbourhood shop due to experiences such as touch and feel, bargaining etc.

The campaign highlights that a customer, irrespective of background/social and economic stature can get all their daily needs products at a genuine price from their neighbourhood stores. Besides, these shops act as hotspots to gather and socialize in smaller towns, wherein people get together to discuss a range of local and national issues.

The campaign ends with a message that neighbourhood stores sell genuine products at a genuine price and are critical to national development as they provide employment to people on the margins of society. We should continue to support them as neighbourhood shops are critical to the revival of consumer demand led economy.

Sharing his thoughts on the campaign, Harsh Pokharna, co-founder and CEO of OkCredit said, “Neighbourhood retail stores are not merely shops, but are in some ways an extension of our world. These stores which a few years ago used to meet all our daily needs are losing sheen in the internet age. With the #PaasHaiToKhaasHai digital campaign, we want to underline the relevance of these stores and exhort consumers to buy from them, so that they can come to our rescue at the time of need and hence live by the quote/saying #PaasHaiToKhaasHai.”

Launched in Hindi, the #PaasHaiToKhaasHai campaign is available on OkCredit’s social network.

AV Link: https://youtu.be/wcYChsTWndE

About OkCredit:

OkCredit is a part of the Ok network- an ecosystem of apps aimed at digitizing small and medium businesses (SMBs) across India. With technology that is simple and easy to access, OK is solving various pain points in everyday functioning of small business owners, be it tracking their accounts, managing staff at their set-up or the need to go online. Ok network’s first product-OkCredit was launched in 2017 by Harsh Pokharna, Gaurav Kumar and Aditya Prasad, all three of them being batchmates at IIT Kanpur. OkCredit has given a complete digital makeover to the traditional register book - ‘Bahi/Udhar Khata’ and made the daily bookkeeping task simpler and effective for millions of small businesses. The app not just helps small businesses keep track of credit transactions – both payments and receivables, it sends timely reminders, and also makes it easier for them to collect and settle balance amounts quickly. The app has seen more than 20 million downloads and can be accessed in more than 10 Indian languages. Currently, it has over 5 million active monthly users which include over 100 types of businesses like kirana store owners, mobile recharge shops, medical stores, apparels amongst others. The venture has raised $83 million from investors to date including from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Tiger Global, and Y Combinator.