Walmart's Flipkart expands grocery services in Tamil Nadu and Kerala

Will offer online grocery shopping to users in Coimbatore and in neighbouring cities of Madurai, Trichy, Ernakulam, Tirupur, Erode, Thrissur, Palakkad and Malappuram

E-commerce firm Flipkart announced the expansion of grocery services in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The Walmart-owned company said this will now provide new customers in the state access to high-quality daily essentials at attractive prices while ensuring their safety through doorstep delivery.

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

“Over the last one year, consumers across the country have warmed up to e-grocery, and Flipkart has sharpened its focus on scaling up this category with sellers, brands and farmers,” said Smrithi Ravichandran, vice president - Grocery, Flipkart. “Grocery is a regionally indexed category, and our focus has been to build local sourcing capabilities to better serve local consumer needs with the finest regional selection in addition to bringing the best quality national brands to the consumer’s doorstep.”

With the help of Flipkart’s newly launched and dedicated grocery fulfilment centre in Coimbatore, the marketplace will offer online grocery shopping to users in Coimbatore and those in neighbouring cities of Madurai, Trichy, Ernakulam, Tirupur, Erode, Thrissur, Palakkad and Malappuram. Through a regional expansion focused marketplace model, this new fulfilment centre will serve more than 150 pin codes in the regions.

“The government is committed to promoting investments in logistics and warehousing,” said N Muruganandam, IAS, Principal Secretary, Industries Department, Tamil Nadu. “The grocery fulfilment centre will enable local merchants to use this infrastructure and widen their market access.”

The Coimbatore grocery fulfilment centre is spread across nearly 1.25 lakh square feet and will create more than 1,100 direct and indirect job opportunities, leading to a boost in local employment and economy. Sustained growth in Flipkart’s grocery business also provides an impetus to the local food processing industry, supporting Indian agriculture and small and medium farmers.

“The grocery fulfilment centre will aid the economic growth of the local ecosystem,” said Pooja Kulkarni, IAS, MD and CEO, Guidance Tamil Nadu. “Tamil Nadu, being the most urbanised state, will also give greater impetus to Flipkart's e-commerce business.”

Flipkart said its top priority is the safety of customers and employees, and the marketplace has been able to help lakhs of sellers and MSMEs keep their businesses operational. It is doing this by offering a lively marketplace for them to sell their products, creating lakhs of jobs. The firm said it continues to follow the highest safety protocol across its supply chain network.