Online grocery shopping in India-the present and the future
The online groceries market in India is expanding at an ever-growing rate. With greater broadband and smartphone penetration, as well as plans to set up “Smart Cities” in the pipeline, one can expect most groceries to be ordered online in India in the near future, with bazaars becoming a thing of the past.
Introduction to BigBasket and its scale of operations
Bangalore-based online supermarket BigBasket may play a key role in this transformation. Set up by Hari Menon, V.S.Sudhakar, Vipul Parekh and Abhinay Choudhari in 2011, it is the single biggest player in the online groceries market. With a funding of approximately $25 million from the International Finance Corporation(IFC) to be raised soon, BigBasket may get even bigger. Currently, it provides over 15,000 products from over 1,000 brands in 9 Indian cities : Bangalore , Mumbai , Hyderabad , Pune , Chennai , Mysore , Kolkata , Ahmedabad and Delhi-NCR. It has handled over 3 million orders till date, and has launched both iOS and Android Mobile phone apps, in order to make online grocery shopping possible via smartphones.
BigBasket’s innovative features
Several innovative features- SmartBasket , which predicts the needs of regular customers, thus enhancing convenience, Fresho-a new brand of products, currently accounting for over 30% of BigBasket revenues , and including within it fruits, meat, bread and coffee products , HappyChef -ready made kids for gourmet dishes, and ExpressDelivery -a novel logistics service which provides deliveries within an hour-all add value to shopping experiences, allowing BigBasket to cater to a wide range of customers with varying tastes.
Looking ahead
BigBasket aims to expand to over 20 tier-II cities over the next five years, besides extending its services to cater to an even wider range of customers. The planned influx of funding from the IFC , as well as the securing of over $50 million from Bessemer Venture Partners , will go a long way in ensuring that BigBasket contributes the most to India’s ongoing shopping revolution.
