Swiggy to use digital payments for delivery fleet

The SuperMarket Grocery Supplies Pvt. Ltd, which runs BigBasket, the online food and grocery store, posted a 34.5% increase in revenue in the fiscal year 2017-18. The operational revenue reached Rs. 1,606 crore in FY 2017-18; it was Rs 1,197 crore in the previous financial year.

As per the reports, the operating losses are almost consistent as compared to the previous year. The losses narrowed by 53% (Rs. 310 crore) for FY18 while it remained Rs. 312 crore for FY17.

BigBasket’s Innovative Retail saw an increase in revenue by 29% to Rs. 1,410 crore.

The Indian online grocery market, as per the industry estimates, is expected to grow at a CAGR of 55% during 2016–2021.

Bengaluru-based BigBasket is backed by the Alibaba Group Holding, and as per the reports, is in talks to raise over $200 million. Last year, the online food and grocery store raised $300 million in a Series E round of funding. On the other hand, the Gurugram-based Grofers, BigBasket’s competitor is also in talks to raise the funds led by Japanese firm SoftBank Group in order to stay abreast with the second phase of the growth.

BigBasket’s business model is based on direct sourcing from the farmers. It is working with 1,800 farmers, currently, and aims to expand and work with 3,000 farmers in the coming years. At present, BigBasket, the online food and grocery store is among the top e-tailers and operates in 30 cities across India.

The online food and grocery seller has expanded its operations to the HoReCa (hotels, restaurants, and caterers) industry, thus, strengthening its business-to-business operations. It has also partnered with local kirana stores to enable smooth functioning in the operations.

The Hyderabad headquartered Smoothie Bar startup ‘Drunken Monkey’ with 50 outlets across 12 Indian cities, has confirmed its intent to rapidly expand the franchise chain to 150 by 2019.

Founded by serial entrepreneur Samrat Reddy, Drunken Monkey delivers blended fresh-fruit smoothies and juices in over 170 special combinations, ranging from all-natural fresh fruit shakes to decadently indulgent smoothies, from detox smoothies to meal smoothies and also a range of smoothies to cure hangovers.

Reddy said, "I wanted to do to smoothies what Starbucks did to coffee. The new generation, the millennials want to be catered to and are more willing than ever to experiment with new brands. People want a space to create meaningful social connections without restricting themselves to the regular coffee and chai outlets. Smoothies are the new social lubricant in town.”

Drunken Monkey says its fresh fruit smoothies and shakes are made from 100% natural local produce, without any artificial flavors, preservatives or even ice.

With an untapped smoothie market and given its first mover advantage in the Smoothies industry, there is still plenty of room for growth, says Reddy. On the company’s strategy for growth, he said, "We believe franchising is the best way forward as it reduces the company's capital requirements and facilitates stronger RoI on expansion.”

Reddy said, “The company is currently self-funded and has plans to explore fresh investments once it achieves 150 bars target and attains strong brand valuation. Right now, the company has positive cash on its balance sheet, no debt and ample capital to pursue growth opportunities.”

Drunken Monkey is also considering its foray into five new international markets currently under study by its research team, after the company has established dominance in the domestic market. The company also plans to introduce ‘Drunken Monkey’ smoothies in bottles in the retail market in the future.

The global smoothies market is projected to reach USD $17 Billion in 2024 and to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.59% during the period 2017-2021, the company said.

After acquiring Gurugram-based GrocerMax in June last year,Tata Group has jumped into the online grocery shopping bandwagon with the soft launch of its e-tailing platform StarQuik.com. The founder of GrocerMax K.Radhakrishnan is currently the Co-founder at Tata Starquik.com.

The brand, which was launched in December last year, has tasted an unqualified success and is pretty happy with the business model and is hopeful of extending the services to all Star Bazaar stores soon.

K.Radhakrishnan, Co-founder, Tata StarQuik.com during India Food Forum 2018 said, “We are now opening in Thane and plan to soon cover whole of Mumbai. Then we go to Bengaluru and Pune. In next one year, we will be in all the cities where Star Bazaar is like Gujarat, Bengaluru, Pune, Mumbai and Hyderabad.”

Starquik is the Omnichannel arm of Star Bazaar Retail where Star Bazaar is a B2B partner. The idea behind launching the brand was to extend the service coverage area of store using the online services.

Radhakrishnan said, “So Starquik is an online site and we sell 10,000 items that are sold in the Star Bazaar store within 3-hours to the customers door-step that covers all perishable, fruit and vegetables, milk, meat, fish, dairy, all FMCG and general merchandise. I doubt any other player anywhere else in the country is doing the kind of model that we are doing.”

According to Radhakrishnan, in grocery, being big does not ensure success. It takes several decades to be able to understand the supply chain and the consumer aspirations and expectations and there are very few players internationally who have done grocery online retail successfully.

“I think we have a model which is a winner and we are capable enough to compete competitors like Amazon. There is enough space for everybody. It is a US $300 billion market. So it will take a long time to get saturated. We have no worry at all,” asserted Radhakrishnan.

He further added, “We are a part of TATA company, so trust that comes from the name of 150 years of existence is huge and the other thing is that no one does 10,000 items in 3-hours to customers door-step.”

The brand, which was launched in December last year, has tasted an unqualified success and is pretty happy with the business model and is hopeful of extending the services to all Star Bazaar stores soon.

Elaborating on the business model, Radhakrishna said, “We have a asset-like variable-cost model and we operate on top of the Star Bazaar stores. We are paper-less, error-less platform and we have built very good front-end and we have our own open source, ERP system at the back. We work with 14 apps which inter-link into each other. We track everything. Technology is actually not really visible but present at the back-end. ”

“Enhancing the customer experience is built into the model but it will keep on evolving. So I think just doing the basics right is a great service for the consumers today as far as grocery is concerned. The consumer is struggling to buy grocery in an easy manner at the same time they also want to save money. Either it is too difficult and you save money and actually go through the hardships or the product is too expensive. We believe we will give convenience as well as saving and great quality merchandise to the customer,” concluded Radhakrishnan.