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Tag: BigBasket

  • Indian online grocer BigBasket raises Millions for next Phase

    Indian online grocer BigBasket raises Millions for next Phase

    Indian online grocery platform BigBasket has raised investment capital of about US$150 million.

    The investors include South Korean Mirae Asset Management (at about $60 million), the UK’s CDC Group (at $40 million), and existing investor Alibaba (about $50 million). The investment figures were shown in documents submitted to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs.

    BigBasket received $300 million in February last year from Alibaba and other investors and has been discussing seeking further funding since last November. The firm aims to generate revenues of the equivalent of $2.5 billion by next year.

    The online-grocery market is burgeoning in India, and accounts for a sizeable proportion of unorganised retail in the country.

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  • Bigbasket India expands its offerings to include beauty products

    Bigbasket India expands its offerings to include beauty products

    Bigbasket has made its foray into the beauty and cosmetics category. The company is already a leader in FMCG sales, staples, and fruits and vegetables, has about 10 million subscribers, and is clocking over 1 lakh orders per day. With this new category, bigbasket has cemented its place as the one-stop-shop for all customer needs in groceries.

    The vast range of cosmetic products on the beauty store by bigbasket includes eyeliners, kajal, face creams, nail colors, lipsticks, hair colors, perfumes, deodorants, etc. which can be purchased on the website or through the app. Some of the prominent labels featured include Lakme, L’Oreal, Garnier, Elle18, Lotus Herbals, and Maybelline, among others.

    Customers can make choices based on their skin type, preferred brand, benefits, formulation, etc. There are also exciting discounts of about 25 percent to 40 percent on selected brands and products.

    Speaking about this, Seshu Tirumala, National Head, Buying and Merchandising, bigbasket, said, “bigbasket’s customers can now look forward to far larger variety in our offering with our most recent addition of beauty products. The foray into beauty and cosmetics category comes at a time when we are already growing at a frenetic pace in the market. With this category, we aim to transcend our existing customer base and take the venture a notch higher – both in terms of the customer base and revenue. We will be providing the widest range of affordable and regularly used beauty products to our customers.

    With a dominant share in the market space, bigbasket now aims to raise additional investments up to US$ 200 million over the next few months. The FMCG sales overall (food and non-food) contribute to over 50 percent of its business, another 30 percent comes from staples (including 14.5 percent from private labels) and 18 percent is from fruits and vegetables. The Alibaba-backed company expects to break even in the 10 large cities by next June and aims at becoming a billion-dollar company by the next fiscal year. The company has a presence in 25 cities and plans to launch its operations in Kochi soon.

    Recently, bigbasket acquired Pune-based RainCan and Bengaluru-based Morning Cart to deliver milk to 20,000 customers. The service has been launched in 7 cities and is expected to roll out to another three cities among the top 10 metros. The milk delivery business is expected to clock Rs 10 billion by next year.

  • BigBasket India eyes 40 pc revenue from private labels next fiscal

    BigBasket India eyes 40 pc revenue from private labels next fiscal

    Chinese retail giant Alibaba-backed online grocery player BigBasket that aims to be a billion-dollar company by the next fiscal year, is expecting 40 percent of its projected revenue to come in from its private labels, a top company official has said.

    “Private labels are around 34 per cent of our business now and we plan to scale this to 40 per cent in about a year. The incremental 6 percentage points of revenue will come from non-fruits and vegetables and non-staples,” Hari Menon, Co-founder and Chief Executive, BigBasket said.

    According to a report: The company aims to clock Rs 3,500 crore in sales this fiscal year, up from Rs 2,000 crore last year.

    He added that the Bengaluru-based company will add a lot of categories to the private labels vertical.

    BigBasket that aims to raise up to US$ 200 million over the next few months, said, the FMCG sales overall (food and non-food) contributes over 50 percent of its business, 30 percent from staples (including 14.5 percent from private labels) and 18 percent from fruits and vegetables.

    It is going to launch beauty as a category in the next few days, with imported products as well, Menon said.

    The company has a presence in 25 cities and plans to launch its operations in Kochi soon.

    “Having gone deeper into the existing consumer base already, which has been our growth driver, we are now planning to get into the upper middle class and middle class segments,” he further said.

    BigBasket, founded in December 2011, claims 10 million subscribers and close to 1 lakh orders per day. The company expects to break even in the 10 large cities by next June.

    BigBasket last month acquired Pune-based RainCan and the Bengaluru-based Morning Cart to deliver milk to 20,000 customers. It has already launched this service in seven cities and expects to roll out to other three cities among the top 10 metros.

    Menon expects the milk delivery business to clock Rs 1,000-crore by next year and plans to grow this business as it will give access to many homes.

    He further said that the company will look at scaling up the fresh meat segment and increase its contribution to 5-6 percent from 1-1.5 percent at present.

    BigBasket has 30 warehouses now and will touch 45 by next year.

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  • Myntra launches loyalty program, ‘Myntra Insider’

    Myntra launches loyalty program, ‘Myntra Insider’

    Myntra has announced the launch of its loyalty program, Myntra Insider. A first of its kind in the country, the program is a comprehensive package, designed to strengthen engagement with its users to drive stickiness on the platform.

    This open-to-all program allows Myntra to democratise fashion for every registered user through unique rewards and experiences.

    The Myntra Insider program hinges on three pillars – it rewards members for purchases as well as engagement such as browsing new categories, sharing feedback, wish listing etc. It offers a host of exciting perks across fashion and lifestyle, with offers from sellers on Myntra and lifestyle partners such as Zomato, TataSky, BigBasket, PhonePe, BookMyShow, EROS NOW, Zoom Car, Gaana to name a few.

    Myntra Insiders will be able to avail special privileges such as early access to sales, priority customer support, special birthday offers and more, depending on their Insider level.

    Based on their level of fandom, users are categorized to be either, Insider, Select, Elite or Icon, with each level offering greater benefits and privileges over the previous. The program will also offer unique experiences to its users such as a session by a stylist, modelling on Myntra content/platform and co-creating designs and styles for Myntra.

    Speaking about the program, Ananth Narayanan, CEO, Myntra-Jabong, said, “Myntra Insider is our endeavour to engage deeply with our users and celebrate our fans. We aim to encourage casually involved users to interact and indulge with Myntra and grow in their journeys to become our icons. The uniqueness of our program is two fold – our uniquely crafted experiences for our biggest fans and gamification of engagement through personalisation and inter-activity. We aspire to have 10 million Myntra Insiders signed up over the next 12 months. We want to make visiting Myntra a habit for our users and aim to get our fans to visit us over 100 days a year and make a purchase every month.”

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  • Here’s how BigBasket is riding on Alibaba’s offline retail strategy

    Here’s how BigBasket is riding on Alibaba’s offline retail strategy

    After raising $300 million last month, Indian online grocery startup BigBasket is entering the offline sector. The company is looking to transform its core online business to offline centres that will store daily moving consumer goods, groceries, fruits and vegetables. These offline stores will be placed in apartments and various office complexes. The Bengaluru based firm has already rolled out a new app called BB Instant. To increase offline purchases it is also planning to start subscription based services on FMCG goods.

    Founded by Abhinay Choudhari, Hari Menon, Vipul Parekh and VS Sudhakar in 2011, BigBasket is an online grocery company, which now is looking to exploit the brick-and-mortar space. The company recently raised $300 million in a round led by Chinese giant Alibaba, which contributed $146 million. The company has raised close to $885.7 million in total disclosed investments.

    BigBasket claims to have an average of 3 orders per user every month with the average ticket size ranging from Rs 1,400-1,500. Further the company claims to have monthly sales of over Rs 200 crore.

    This investment comes in at a time when Indian and foreign behemoths are heavily investing in the sector. Recently, Flipkart restarted its grocery business, with the like of Amazon planning to enter the offline stores in India.

    This is not the first time Alibaba has invested in an offline strategic move. The Chinese giant has been looking into physical stores for years, now, in an effort to engage customers to its ecommerce platforms by helping to digitize traditional merchants. It has pumped billions into investments including its own grocery chain, a shopping mall group, Walmart-like chains, among others.

    With the move, BigBasket may be following the footsteps of Hema, the first digital supermarket incubated in China by Alibaba. Consumers shopped using an app, either in person or remotely. Shopping options included buying food to carry out, purchasing in store and buying online with a 30-minute delivery. Similarly, BigBasket has launched a 60-120 minute express delivery through its stores.  

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  • Alibaba all set to put $300 million in BigBasket

    Alibaba all set to put $300 million in BigBasket

    Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding plans to invest about US$200 million in India’s online supermarket Bigbasket.

    This leads a $280 million funding round and would give it a stake of about 25 per cent in the startup, insiders say. The deal is awaiting approval from the Competition Commission of India.

    Based in Bangalore, the grocer has previously had investment discussions with Amazon.com, which was given government approval this year to invest $500 million into food retailing. Founder Jeff Bezos has said he will invest $5 billion in India.

    Meanwhile, Alibaba has invested in One97 Communications, which runs digital payment and e-commerce businesses.

    Owned by Innovative Retail Concepts, Bigbasket has TV commercials featuring Bollywood actor Shahrukh Khan. The company offers delivery in more than 25 cities and offers 18,000 products from 1000-plus brands.

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  • Alibaba seeks approval to buy stake in India’s BigBasket

    Alibaba seeks approval to buy stake in India’s BigBasket

    Chinese internet giant Alibaba is seeking Competition Commission of India (CCI) approval to acquire a stake in online grocery startup BigBasket.

    Financial details have not been disclosed in the CCI filing, which relates to “the acquisition and purchase of shares” of BigBasket parent Supermarket Grocery Supplies by Alibaba Singapore.

    Alibaba Group Holding and its Indian associate PayTM E-Commerce were reported in July as having a 60-day exclusive pact with BigBasket. There were also reports of BigBasket being in merger talks with rival Grofers.

    BigBasket has a presence in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi-NCR, Kolkata, Jaipur, Punjab and Lucknow as well as four other cities, and has raised more than $200 million from investors.

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  • Amazon reportedly eyeing BigBasket buy in India

    Amazon reportedly eyeing BigBasket buy in India

    India’s e-commerce market, which is very much driven by mobile commerce, is growing fast and Amazon, which has been operating there for several years, is trying to stay ahead of that growth. The company recently made progress gaining on market leader Flipkart, largely by improving its mobile app engagement rate by 46% in the span of one year.

    But that’s not the only way to grow a business, and if Flipkart’s Snapdeal acquisition goes through, Amazon may move fairly quickly to take advantage of new regulations in India allowing 100% foreign ownership of native e-commerce marketplaces.

    The Bloomberg story also suggests that BigBasket could be talking to other parties, including private equity firms, about a deal, even though the company raised about $150 million from investors last year and another $7 million in venture debt just three months ago. That may be another sign of how fast the market is growing, as even a well-funded, fast-growing online grocery firm appears to need even more money help to keep up.

    Amazon is “deadly serious about Indian e-grocery,” according to Deepanshu Mandlekar, retail analyst with Planet Retail, who wrote up his opinion of the Amazon-BigBasket report. Mandlekar suggested Amazon needs to move quickly to make this acquisition if Flipkart is working on its own deal to gain greater scale and resources.

    Though most recently Amazon has been obsessed with entering the brick-and-mortar grocery market, it could also focus on international expansion of those efforts. In India, being able to absorb an established player would be a shortcut to market prominence might be too hard to ignore.

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  • Amazon India proposes $500m food venture

    Amazon India proposes $500m food venture

    Amazon India has applied to the government to invest US$500 million in a wholly owned venture that will allow the US eCommerce giant to stock locally produced food items and sell them online.

    If successful, it would become the first foreign retailer to enter the segment.

    Amazon already has an eCommerce marketplace in India, but while 100 per cent overseas capital is permitted for such platforms, they cannot sell products of their own. Last year, the government allowed for 100 per cent foreign investment in the retailing of processed foods made in India.

    Amazon has filed its application with the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP), which handles foreign investment in retailing and e­Commerce. The company plans to invest $500 million over five years and could start selling locally produced food items within six months of obtaining approval, says an insider.

    “We are excited by the government’s continued efforts to encourage foreign direct investment in India for a stronger food-supply chain,” says an Amazon spokesperson. “We have sought an approval to invest and partner with the government in achieving this vision.”

    Only Indian grocery delivery companies Big­Basket and Grofers have applied under
    the category, prompting the government to invite companies including CP Foods (Thailand), Heinz, Nestle and Walmart to provide feedback and investment plans.

    This followed the minister for food-processing industries Harsimrat Kaur Badal visiting London with a team of officials last year to meet representatives of such companies as Cobra Beer, Harrods, Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s and Tesco to drum up support for the policy.

    Amazon’s current online platform is open to Indian-­owned entities, and similar platforms are run by Flipkart, the country’s largest eCommerce company, and Snapdeal.

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  • Grofers shifts base to Singapore

    Grofers shifts base to Singapore

    PM Narendra Modi may have been the flag-bearer of `Make in India’, with his recent trip to the US being a highlight for `Digital India’. But another Indian startup has joined the growing list of new companies moving base out of India. Gurgaon-based Grofers decided to shift headquarters to Singapore from India.

    A hyperlocal grocery delivery firm, Grofers’ moving out is primarily due to a friendlier corporate regime in foreign countries.

    The shift has again highlighted a `brain drain’ of sorts with regards to Indian companies. Earlier, companies like Mobikon and AdNear had also moved out of India. In fact, Indian e-commerce’s poster boy Flipkart too shifted its base to Singapore, while some of the others like Fresh Desk and Druva chose USA.

    Grofers co-founder Albinder Dhindsa said, “Our main reason for a Singapore holding company is owing to listing potential in the future. Our assets are still on the books of the Indian entity, so tax equation remains same for us.”

    India’s high corporate tax rates and compliance issues are the key reasons for companies to join the exodus, industry experts pointed out.

    In fact, investors too are more confident putting money into a startup when the company headquarters operates out of a tech-friendly foreign country .Corporate tax rate is 30% in India, while the same in Singapore is 17%. “India is a hot spot for startups now. But it is yet to catch up in terms of regulations and tax structures. In a tech-friendly market, which is mature enough to house them, getting relatively higher fundings and more valuation becomes easier,” said a domestic investor.

    Key stakeholders pointed out what also makes it even tougher for early stage or emerging companies in the new economy space is the fact that a fairly modestvalued company has to exercise same sort of compliances which an established conglomerate is expected to meet in India. “It is a strenuous task for even a middlesized company to match the corporate compliance standards of, say , a behemoth like ITC,” a corporate lawyer said.

    For Grofers’ next round of funding too, the Singapore entity might come in handy as its competitors like BigBasket and PepperTap have recently raised funds for expansion and acquired consumers in a sector which is the hottest in the ecommerce arena in India.What remains to be seen is whether the government can arrest the rising exodus and `Make In India’ becomes a reality.