Starter Kit. Idea 369 of 500. Cluster 18
Gift and grocery delivery to parents at home, ordered by their children abroad, for a birthday or an ordinary week
The mechanism, from the book
1.5 million people abroad who know how rich countries work, and who send home money and little else.
The first step
Agree prices with one grocer and one cake shop in your town, and offer 10 families abroad a delivery to their parents: a weekly basket, or a cake and flowers on a birthday, with a photograph sent on arrival. Take orders through a simple form and a bank transfer. Families who order a second time without being asked are the proof.
- Who pays first
- A Sri Lankan abroad who wants a parent's birthday, or an ordinary week, to include something from them, and cannot carry it to the door.
- What leaves today
- Money sent home buys little the sender can see; a delivery with a photograph turns it into care the parent receives, and the spending stays with local shops.
Ask first
- Department of the Registrar of Companies. Ask which registration suits a business taking orders from abroad and delivering at home.
- Inland Revenue Department. Ask how payments received from abroad for local deliveries are recorded for tax.
Check before you spend
How payments from abroad reach you safely, food hygiene for anything fresh or cooked, and how each delivery is confirmed to the child abroad.
Find out these three numbers
- What would a child abroad pay for a weekly grocery delivery?
- How many deliveries a day can one rider make in your area?
- What do customers abroad want added: a photo, a call, a card?
A comparison from the book
Sri Lanka House. Chapter Seventeen
"And the part that matters most: the ability to reorder from home, for ever"
The second order matters most; make it easy for a child abroad to order again every week.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.