Online ‘Qurbani Ke Bakrey’ drums up sales on wheels
LUCKNOW: With open goat markets not functioning due to the Covid pandemic, Pashu Bajaar -a dedicated website for selling goats from the Goat Trust – has come up with a unique way of advertising its business.
The Pashu Bajaar has sent out a couple of e-rickshaws with ‘Qurbani Ke Bakrey’ posters on them and their staff in the e-rickshaws, besides distributing pamphlets and rate list of their product, also deliver the goats at the door steps of people who have placed orders online.
For the past few weeks, these e-rickshaws have been doing the rounds of various parts of the city -- especially the Muslim dominated areas of Lucknow. They are inviting Muslims to buy ‘certified’ goats for Bakrid sacrifice. The festival is likely on August 1.
So far Pashu Bajaar has sold and home-delivered 683 goats and 3,000 more are in the process of being home-delivered.
Though most buyers opt for one or two goats through the website, but some like Mohammad Sameer of Chowk booked a goat online but went to the Kukrail farm area of the Goat Trust and picked up five goats.
“I live in Chowk. Learnt about this and came here. The goats are really good and well priced. There is no surge pricing here. I am very happy to have bought the goats for sacrifice this way for the first time.”
The Goat Trust is a voluntary organisation engaged in promoting and supporting goat rearing, especially in Bundelkhand and Lucknow region.
Sanjeev Kumar, a social entrepreneur and an Ashoka Fellow (2013), had founded the Goat Trust in 2013 to promote systematic goat rearing as a means of livelihood. A total of 442 goat farmers are linked to the organisation.
An alumnus of the National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, Kumar said: “All the goats on our website are actually owned by these farmers in villages and we are just facilitating the sale and profit earning for them. These farmers so far have made between Rs 2,200 to Rs 2,500 profit per goat this Bakrid. We issue a health certificate for each goat before its sale that mentions the details of when the goats were de-wormed and vaccinated and their age and weight.”
“People go to the site, book the goat of their choice by looking at the pictures, health certificate and other descriptions such as weight, age etc. A buyer first books his preferred choice by paying 20% amount online, then once the delivery is done the buyers send full payment,” said Kumar.