At your doorstep, madam!

From car parts to ice cream, get everything delivered to your home.

KARACHI:

We live in an age where phenomena like online banking, social networking sites and even beauticians provide services in the comfort of one’s home, cutting short the need to venture out and chase the essentials of day to day living. Even the traditional work structure has changed. Technology now allows most people to remain at home and work from their desk. The smell of coffee beans may lure you out of bed, but given the rising petrol prices and the insane traffic, what is left to lure you to step outside your home?

‘Delivered right to your doorstep’ is the new catch phrase that gets our attention. The growth in food businesses that deliver to your home within the hour can be testified by the branching out of the popular website karachisnob.com into lahoresnob.com and islamabadsnob.com.

Catering to this ‘king in my castle’ syndrome, hundreds of small food business offering only home delivery services have sprung up in all major Pakistani cities. There is something to cater to every taste.

Even premium desserts can be home delivered. Del Frio offers hand-crafted, preservative-free desserts ranging from sundaes to milkshakes and coffee, all in the comfort of your home.

Driving through the busy streets of our congested metropolitan cities is anybody’s nightmare. Get your laundry picked up and dropped off at your doorstep hassle free with places like Dry Clean Service in Karachi. Write off the two hours that picking up and dropping off laundry took out of your week, and use that time to catch up with friends!

Like to read, but don’t have the time or patience to browse through cramped book stores? Let services like kitabian.com and thereadersclub.com take care of that for you.

Kitabain.com allows you to browse and select books from categories like gardening, literature, music, sci-fi, history and graphic novels amongst many others. Pay online, and have your choice of books home delivered.

The Readers Club lets you rent books for an unlimited period. The books will be home delivered. Return them when you are done, and receive the next set of books you ordered.

There was a time when the only item on your grocery list to find its way to your refrigerator on its own was milk. Now, with services like Karachi Home Delivery and Khadim Online in Karachi, just call and provide your list of items and you will no longer find yourself struggling with a grocery cart through gloomy aisles in the supermarket every Sunday afternoon.

‘Khadim karay kaam, aap karain aaraam’— Khadim Online will deliver anything from grocery and medicine to books. It even offers to deliver cooked food or any other items from your home to your friends and relatives houses. The only thing it won’t deliver is haraam and illegal items, but then that’s what the trusted network of bootleggers who home deliver are for.

While Khadim Online has a nominal charge for delivery, Karachi Home Delivery offers the same services free of charge.

Even bigger items like appliances (from refrigerators to laptops) and car parts can be delivered to your home with websites like homeshopping.pk.

Now that you have all this time cleared up to pursue other, more pleasurable activities, call up DVD Direct and order the latest releases or your favorite classics and they will deliver those within the hour free of charge, or order sexy lingerie to spice up your life at nighty.pk.

As I wait for my copy of Sin City and Sunset Boulevard to be delivered, I share these thoughts with a friend on Facebook (yes, even your social life is delivered to you at home). She points out, “Now, if only one could get the man of your dreams delivered at home — free of charge!”.



Retail therapy

Here’s a list of what you can order

Mind

• Books: from self improvement to politics

• Travel: from cheap local deals to luxury get-aways

• Food: for those who eat only when necessary — fast food types

Body

• Grooming: anything from manicures to threading and massages

• Style: people selling silk sari’s to ties and tailors to custom make your wardrobe to online shopping for the latest ready-to-wear

• Health: to take care of your body when you have no time for the gym — leaving you no excuses

• Food: for those who enjoy their meals — home cooked

Soul

• Laptops: from used machines to the latest technological powerhouses

• Lingerie: even men can place orders, sans embarrassment

• Food: for those who live to eat — gourmet food

Published in The Express Tribune, April 8^th, 2011.