"The whole concept behind the site, namaste.com, is that the Indian store is so far away for most people and they don't have the time," Namaste's chief operating officer Subhash Bedi told the India-West newspaper.

"You don't really feel like trekking down to the Indian store if it's an hour away...and in some cities there is no Indian store at all," he said.

Bedi and Parminder Singh, both armed with MBAs from JL Kellogg School of Business at Northwestern University at Illinois, launched Namaste in June.

The site is one branch of a master site called Ethnicgrocer.com, which features 20,000 products from 50 countries. Bedi and Singh have stocked the site with basics no Indian home could be without, Basmati rice, pickles, spices and tea, besides adding lots of extras such as Horlick's malted drink powder, music CDs, Patak's chutneys, mehndi, Anup hair oil, Neem toothpaste and crunchy savouries. There's also a wide selection of prepared foods, both canned and in vacuum packs. Frozen food will be available soon, Bedi said.

The site, which ships 5,000 orders a day, has a 95 per cent Indian customer base and the most popular items are rice and CDs, he said.