Indian ecommerce – German wholesaler Metro Cash & Carry sees opportunity

Metro Cash & Carry is a Germany based wholesale retail chain that has over 750 stores in 27 countries. What’s different about the wholesaler that it operates in the B2B segment unlike other retail hypermarket such as Walmart and Tesco.

Their consumers are registered businesses such as hotels, restaurants, caterers, traders who buy in bulk. Now, along with offline companies, Metro Cash and Carry is looking forward to add ecommerce businesses in their clientele list since Indian Ecommerce is growing leaps and bounds.

Plan of action

The wholesaler has initiated special programmes meant for ecommerce companies. For now this plan is centred on online retailers that sell fresh produce and other groceries. Rajeev Bakshi, Managing Director of Metro Cash & Carry India said, “We have launched targeted special programmes for e-commerce companies and local traders. We offer them special pricing and support systems.”

While speaking about online retailers that are using their services and how this arrangement is working out, he said, “A good number, including some top names, use the service.” He added, “Unlike other customers they come on a daily basis. They are online and they can pick the product off the shelf as they get the order. They can do this till they achieve a certain scale. They need to have their own infrastructure then.”

Metro Cash & Carry’s presence in India

Their first store opened in Bangalore in 2003. In India as of now, they have 17 stores spread across 12 cities, with 3 in Bangalore and 2 each in Mumbai and Hyderabad. They plan to set up 50 outlets by 2020. In one of the earlier interviews last year, Chief Executive at Metro Cash & Carry, Olaf Koch had said, “India has always been an important future growth market of Metro and we have seen continuous like-for-like growth recently in India.”

With focus on reducing delivery timelines, this special programme will help etailers who can’t afford inventory model to cut down on warehousing, inventory and overhead costs. As for those who follow hyper-local model, it ensures that ample stock will be available in such B2B wholesale outlets at any given time as opposed to local shops that stocks limited items. But as Bakshi said, this pact will work till a certain level. After that etailers will have to build their own support system.