BigBasket has also acquired Delyver.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: BigBasket, India’s largest online grocery outlet, is augmenting its logistical network to compete with companies that offer rapid, same-day deliveries.
The Bengaluru-based outfit is setting up a number of small warehouses across the Indian subcontinent with the goal of shortening its shipping times dramatically under an express delivery service, according to The Economic Times
BigBasket is slated to build about 10 such warehouses, or so-called “dark stores,” in each metropolitan city within in its network, and more in an additional 50 smaller towns.
Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, and Delhi are among the major cities that will host new BigBasket warehouses, reported TechCrunch.
“On the one hand we’re a full-service online grocer that delivers large volumes — but we are also a one-hour express delivery for top-ups through the month,” BigBasket founder and chief executive Hari Menon told ET. “The second will be done in our partner ‘kiranas’ [small neighborhood retail stores] and these dark stores.”
Menon said dark stores in cities will be of around 5,000 square feet each, with up to 1,500 product lines being fed from central delivery centers in each city. The first dark store will open in Gurgaon on Saturday.
Dark stores in towns will be about 10,000 square feet each. The first of these was scheduled to open in Mysuru on Monday, and more are to come in Coimbatore, Madurai, Trichy, and Vizag over the next month.
In another move focused on rapid delivery, last week TechCrunch reported that BigBasket acquired Delyver, a hyper-local food delivery startup also based in Bengaluru. With Delyver’s fleet, BigBasket can promises delivery within an hour in almost 40 Bangalore neighborhoods.
BigBasket was founded in 2011 and has raised $35.8 million in capital to date, according to Crunchbase. Unlike some of its competitors, BigBasket carries its own inventory, which is a more expensive business model but gives the company greater control over its products.
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