Yesterday I received a call from Sharekhan. Sharekhan has been my stockbroker for almost a decade now. Anyway, it was good to hear a local dialect (Konkani) because the call was from Mapusa, Goa, my hometown. The lady wanted to know whether I would be interested in buying some MFs through Sharekhan. 

I politely declined and diverted the conversation to their core offerings, that is, brokerage charges on the stocks. 

Your brokerage is almost 5 times more than other brokerage firms, I said that laughingly. 

The response was funny. She said, we know sir, but there is hardly anything we can do about it. Firms like Zerodha are quite new and we won’t be able to match their prices.

I said, well, then why do you think I should stick with you?

She said because we have people to support you. (She meant service)

I asked a couple of more questions around the platform and the discussion was over.

I just reflected on the sorry state of some businesses that opened in 2000s :

#Sharekhan will never be able to match the brokerage of #Zerodha

#Crosswords will never be able to match the prices of #Amazon

Idea-Vodafone will never be able to match the unit #economics of #Jio

And yet they exist!

Think about it

Or maybe sometimes you only need to exist…

Comment!