Zain Traders
How one of Brandreth Road's biggest heavy-machinery names took a decades-old trade fully digital, from a self-service customer portal to billing on a tablet.
The challenge
Ali Zain runs Zain Traders, one of the biggest names on Brandreth Road, Lahore's heavy-machinery heartland. He carries prominent brands and is known up and down the road. The business was strong. What it was not, yet, was modern.
Ali did not come to us with a stock problem or a ledger problem. He came with a bigger ambition. The trade on Brandreth Road still moves on phone calls, paper ledgers, and trips to the shop to ask a simple question, and Ali wanted to leave all of that behind.
His customers kept asking the same things. What is my current ledger. Which invoice was that. How much do I owe. What do you have in stock. Every one of those questions meant a phone call or a visit, and every answer meant someone at Zain Traders stopping to dig it out. Ali wanted his customers to simply see for themselves, and to place an order without picking up the phone. And he wanted the business itself to move with him, billing from a tablet on the floor, full access from a mobile, and invoices and messages going out on WhatsApp where his customers already are.
What we built
We did not just digitize Zain Traders' books. We modernized how the whole business meets its customers.
A customer portal his clients open themselves
We gave Zain Traders a customer portal. Ali shares a link, and from there his client can see their own ledger, their invoices, the amounts outstanding, and the products on offer. No phone call, no trip to the shop. The customer simply looks.
Ordering straight from the portal
The portal is not just a window. From the same place a customer checks their ledger, they can place an order. The request lands with Zain Traders ready to fulfill, with no phone tag in between.
Billing on a tablet
Ali wanted to bill from a tablet on the floor, and we built E-Khata to work exactly there. Bills get cut on the tablet, and everything stays maintained on its own, without a separate back-office step at the end of the day.
Mobile access, anywhere
The full business travels in his pocket. Ali and his team have mobile access to the ledgers, the stock, and the invoices, so the shop counter is no longer the only place the business exists.
WhatsApp, where the customers are
Bills go out on WhatsApp, and messages reach customers on WhatsApp. In a trade that runs on relationships, the invoice and the reminder arrive where the conversation already lives.
What they got
The outcome
Zain Traders stopped being a phone-call business. Ali's customers open a link and see their own ledger, their invoices, and what is in stock, then place an order without anyone picking up the phone. Bills are cut on a tablet on the floor, the whole business travels in a pocket, and invoices and reminders land on WhatsApp where customers already are.
One of Brandreth Road's oldest names now runs like one of its newest. And on a road where everyone knows everyone, that kind of modernization does not stay quiet for long.
“We have been on Brandreth Road a long time, but I wanted us to feel new. Now my customers see their own ledger, order from a link, and get their bill on WhatsApp. That is the business I wanted.”
