Joining the competition with the likes of Swiggy, Dunzo, Blinkit & Zepto, Tata Group-owned BigBasket is rapidly scaling up the quick commerce race by expanding its two services offering 10-20 minute & sub-60-minute deliveries.
The online grocery seller recently launched ‘bbnow’ and ‘bbexpress’ to cater to quick deliveries depending on distance.
‘bbnow’ offers 10-20-minute deliveries within a 1.5-2.5 km radius with access to inventory comprising over 3,000 products. ‘bbexpress’ offers deliveries within an hour for consumers within a 6 km radius with a choice of over 8,000 products, the firm said in a statement.
Quick commerce services have proliferated India’s e-commerce ecosystem with promises of instant and rapid delivery of groceries and other items for daily use. Companies typically set up dark stores or partner with local grocery stores to service orders in under 15 minutes.
The sector has seen the entry of new firms as well existing players such as Zepto, Blinkit (erstwhile Grofers) and Swiggy Instamart ramp up quick deliveries.
“Apart from consumers who plan and buy their monthly groceries from BigBasket, there is a huge user base comprising those who make unplanned purchases, top-ups and impulse purchases. For impulse and emergency purchases, the ‘bbnow’ service is a great option, and for unplanned buyers who are not in extreme haste, we have ‘bbexpress,’ delivering within an hour of order placement,” said Hari Menon, Co-Founder and CEO, BigBasket.
The online supermarket firm has built a significant delivery network across the country along with a chain of 90 offline operational stores.
“There are plans to have about 700 more stores in place by year end. BigBasket endeavours to cover the entire spectrum of grocery retail including quick commerce, physical stores alongside online grocery sales through the main BigBasket platform,” the firm said.
Instead of relying on third-party stores to deliver, BigBasket says it has built its own network of dark stores and aims to deliver as many products as possible in a safe and logical time frame.
There is no cap on the number of products that one can order through these platforms but typical order sizes average between 3-5 products priced at around Rs 400 for quick commerce deliveries. BigBasket uses a mix of technology, market understanding and innovation to create effective and consumer-oriented solutions.
Currently, the firm operates across 40 cities in India, recording about 15 million customer orders per month. In 2020, it reached $1 billion in annual revenue.
Last year in May, Tata Sons' subsidiary Tata Digital acquired a majority (64.3%) stake in Supermarket Grocery Supplies (SGS), the parent and business-to-business (B2B) operator of BigBasket, providing exits for at least two early institutional backers including Alibaba Group and Actis LLP.
Bengaluru-based BigBasket's investors include Helion Ventures, British International Investment (formerly CDC), Bessemer Venture Partners and South Korea’s Mirae Asset Venture Investments.
In February, BigBasket acquired the enterprise business unit of a deep-tech company Agrima Infotech incubated by the Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM).