Flipkart expands grocery service to more than 50 cities

Ecommerce marketplace Flipkarthas announced the expansion of its grocery delivery service to more than 50 cities across the country. The demand for online delivery of grocery is projected to rise, especially as the country is still struggling to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.

Flipkart said the expansion would make its service available in seven metro cities and over 40 neighbouring cities. The company noted that it had exponentially scaled up the grocery services business over the last one year.

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Surge in growth

The metro locations of the grocery delivery services will include Kolkata, Pune, and Ahmedabad. The other cities will be Mysore, Kanpur, Warangal, Allahabad, Aligarh, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Rajkot, Vadodara, Vellore, Tirupati, and Daman, among others. It plans to expand t over 70 cities in the next six months.

According to Flipkart, the grocery segment witnessed 3X growth in the last one year.

Quoting a recent report by RedSeer Consulting, the company said more than 50 percent (close to $570 billion) grocery retail space in India is addressable by e-grocery platforms – of this, value-first households account for a significant 61 percent portion, with metro and Tier I markets covering more than 40 percent of this opportunity.

Manish Kumar, Senior Vice President - Grocery, General Merchandise and Furniture, Flipkart, said, “Grocery continues to be one of the fastest growing categories, with the increase in demand for quality food and household supplies from users.

"In line with this, we have invested in scaling up our grocery operations across the country, strengthening ecosystem partnerships, thus ensuring a seamless grocery shopping experience through expansive product selection, robust supply chain, and smooth in-app experience for consumers.”

According to Manish, Flipkart has witnessed increased demand for groceries from Tier II cities in the past year, fuelled by customers' increasing preference for contactless shopping. “It is a trend that we think will continue and will set the course of the e-grocery space in India,” he said.

Flipkart Grocery has 7,000+ products available across 200-plus categories.

Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO, Flipkart Group, had at a recent investor meet remarked on how the company was planning to scaling up the grocery operations.