Flipkart scales up grocery infra to meet demand amid second covid wave

Plans to add over 800,000 sq ft of space through 5 new fulfilment centres over the next three months, in Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Coimbatore and Hyderabad

E-commerce firm Flipkart is strengthening its grocery supply chain infrastructure across the country. The second Covid-19 wave and related restrictions have further increased the demand for e-commerce especially grocery services as people stay at home.

Through the new effort, Walmart-owned Flipkart will strengthen its capabilities to provide its customers safe and seamless access to order daily essentials through quick and contactless doorstep delivery.

Flipkart plans to step up supply chain infrastructure for its grocery business and add over 800,000 square feet of space through 5 new fulfilment centres over the next three months. This would be done across Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Coimbatore and Hyderabad. The additional fulfilment centre capacity will help Flipkart cater to over 73,000 grocery orders per day.

With this additional infrastructure, the marketplace will bring the ease of online grocery shopping to more users across the country.

“During these challenging times, e-commerce has emerged as a safe means of making purchases,” said Smrithi Ravichandran, vice president, Grocery, Flipkart. “Customer safety is at the centre of the Flipkart group’s efforts and our new grocery supply chain infrastructure will help us serve more customers in the country who can order daily essentials seamlessly and avail of contactless delivery.”

The company ramped up its grocery fulfilment centre capacity over last month across Lucknow, Pune, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Patna.

Ravichandran said Flipkart is continuously engaging with brand and marketplace partners to ensure stock availability across the country.

Flipkart Grocery offers over 7,000 products across over 200 categories. These range from daily household supplies, staples, snacks and beverages, confectionery and personal care. The grocery offering is backed by an intuitive user experience through voice-enabled shopping for groceries, credit offerings and open box deliveries.

With the current grocery fulfilment centre network spread across Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad, among other cities, Flipkart serves close to 64,000 orders a day. The company said it has also created thousands of direct and indirect job opportunities, leading to a boost in employment and the economy. Sustained growth in Flipkart’s grocery business is giving a boost to the local food processing industry. The firm said this is resulting in massive support to the Indian agriculture and small and medium farmers.

Last month, Flipkart also expanded its hyperlocal service Flipkart Quick to six new cities - Delhi, Gurgaon, Ghaziabad, Noida, Hyderabad and Pune. This provides consumers access to order daily essentials such as fruits and vegetables and get delivery within 90 minutes. The company said its fresh produce sourcing boosts farmer livelihoods and the local food processing industry through enhanced market linkages. Flipkart said the safety of customers and employees is its utmost priority while meeting customers’ requirements by delivering at their doorstep through a safe and sanitised supply chain. By delivering to customers across the country, Flipkart said thousands of delivery heroes have been able to keep customers safe by reducing the need for them to step out of their homes to buy products. Flipkart said it has been able to help hundreds and thousands of sellers and MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) keep their businesses operational by offering a lively marketplace for them to sell their products. The firm said this has enabled it to create hundred and thousands of jobs.

In the grocery space, Flipkart competes with players such as BigBasket, Swiggy, Amazon, Grofers and Reliance’s JioMart.

Amazon India said along with hundreds and thousands of sellers (including small and medium businesses) and associates across our network, it is working hard to serve customers while following stringent safety measures and government guidelines.

“Customers trust Amazon.in to safely home deliver products that they need and value,” said an Amazon spokesperson. “We continue to work with the government to request them to allow home delivery of all products to safely fulfil customer needs”

As per research firm RedSeer Consulting’s estimates, more than 50 per cent of the $570 billion grocery retail space in India is addressable by e-grocery platforms. Of this, value-first households account for a significant 61 per cent portion, with metro and tier-1 markets covering more than 40 per cent of this value-first opportunity.

Riding on the huge and profitable value-first opportunity, the overall e-grocery market is projected to touch $24 billion GMV (gross merchandise value) by 2025, of which 55 per cent will be contributed by the value-first households, according to RedSeer.

HIGHLIGHTS:

• 800,000 sq ft space through 5 new fulfilment centres over next three months
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• 73,000 grocery orders per day, enabled by the additional fulfilment centre capacity.
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• 7,000 products across over 200 categories offered by Flipkart Grocery.
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• 50% of the $570 bn grocery retail space in India is addressable by e-grocery platforms.
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• $24 bn GMV, the overall e-grocery market projected to touch by 2025.