One of the fastest growing segments, online grocery is multiplying rapidly. The convenience of hassle free shopping, doorstep delivery, saving time and attractive deals & discounts has contributed largely to the rising trend of shopping for groceries online, especially in metropolitan cities.
Needless to say, be it ecommerce giants, investors or exclusive e-grocery players, everyone is in the battle to get their share of this growing ecommerce arm. Proof is the changes that took place in quick succession. BigBasket upped their game after receiving Rs 200 crore funding. Reliance entered sooner than expected. Tata Group launched their own e-grocery platform, My247market. While Snapdeal tied up with Godrej Nature Basket, Amazon decided to join hands with local kirana stores. Close on the heels of this was Flipkart, that announced their plans to enter online grocery market.
And the list of companies joining e-grocery is rising without any brakes. Latest to join this bandwagon is One97, parent company of online payments & recharges portal –Paytm. One97 Communications is all set to enter e-grocery with their new app Zip that aims at connecting users to both local offline as well as online grocers. Currently functional in Bangalore, the company is going to expand its operations to Delhi in a month.
It is established that there is not dearth of funds and the potential is huge. Vice-President of SAIF Partners, Mayank Khanduja said, “Grocery forms a very large sector for any household and the local kirana players have not been able to give services which a modern customer would like to get.” Karan Mehrotra, CEO of LocalBanya shared, “This sector is the holy grail of ecommerce. It is the largest in volume and hardest to execute.”
Speaking on sudden interest of investors in this sector, K Radhakrishnan, a former Reliance Retail and Future Group senior executive added, “Investors have realised that this is the way the world is moving.” In the recent times, Gurgaon based PepperTap and Bangalore based, ZopNow raised $10 million. Whereas Grofers, another player based in Gurgaon has raised $35 million from Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital.
This is why players such as LocalBanya, BigBasket and Mera Grocer are pouring money in advertisements. Brand visibility being the key to expand consumer base, companies aren’t shying away from spending money on advertisements. Co-founder of BigBasket, Vipul Parekh said, “As we are going to multiple cities, our localised advertising campaigns will follow.” Big ecommerce players such as Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal, and Paytm are also planning to create special campaigns for their online grocery venture.
And why not? Who would want to ignore a retail sector that forms nearly 70% of India’s overall retail market.
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