Amid the devastating second Wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, with most states in the country under lockdown, Bengaluru-based B2B ecommerce marketplace ShakeDealhas been ramping up efforts to extend its support to its customers as well as employees.

The startup has launched project SamRaksha (“Safe Together”) for all its employees and their immediate families. 

SamRaksha comprises of four key initiatives, including:

• Health insurance coverage for all employees across all locations.

• Telemedicine: The startup will facilitate video consultations with an approved doctor who can offer basic consultation, advice on identifying or evaluating symptoms, first aid/basic medication etc. They will also provide information on monitoring symptoms and suggest the course of action.

• Vaccination: ShakeDeal plans to tie up with a lab to have a vaccination drive at its offices where employees can get vaccinated for free, and as soon as possible. Alternatively, the company is also looking to extend support to get appointments and reimburse the cost of vaccines for employees.

• Testing: The startup is partnering with labs to offer RT-PCR test, if recommend by a doctor. All its employees will be able to avail this facility when required.

“During the second wave, ShakeDeal has continued to provide our customers with COVID-19 essentials in a timely manner, like how we did during the first wave last year. Ramping up of production and supply of PPE essentials was our focus last year, and we executed with quick turnaround to achieve the same,” Akshay Hegde, Co-founder and Managing Director, ShakeDeal, tells YourStory.

With the second wave hitting India with unprecedented severity, ShakeDeal witnessed a spike in demand for sanitisers. As claimed, Shakedeal is supplying sanitisers in various packaging quantities — from 100 mL, 500mL to 5L — and have cumulatively fulfilled over 1 lakh litres of sanitiser so far since the start of the second wave.

The startup says the sanitisers are sourced from manufacturers and distilleries with whom they've worked with since the first wave.

A similar spike in demand was seen for critical COVID-care equipment like nebulisers, oximeters, steamers, among others. While ShakeDeal is continuously making efforts to keep up with this demand, it has also taken steps to import and supply medical-grade oxygen concentrators of 5L and 10L capacities.

“Our first batch of concentrators were a lot of 100 pcs and there’s more on the way. We’ve begun fulfilling these requirements and are doing best to help overcome the shortage of medical oxygen,” said Akshay.

ShakeDeal has also partnered with reputed OEMs of healthcare equipment such as Stanley Healthcare and other top brands to import quality oxygen concentrators to India. 

“These consignments are in transit and shall arrive shortly and be distributed to our customers, NGOs, and corporates,” adds Akshay.

Launched in 2016, ShakeDeal was started as a B2B ecommerce marketplace for industrial goods and supplies, office and housekeeping supplies, and corporate gifting. However, in June 2020, the company switched gears to health and safety offerings. These items included PPE coveralls, gloves, face masks, hand sanitisers, and disinfecting equipment, among others.