Grofers records ₹200 crore GMV during sale

Online grocery startup Grofers claims to have garnered 50% market share against bigger rival BigBasket, after it recorded over ₹207 crore in gross merchandise value (GMV) during the January sale, according to a top company executive.

Grofers India Pvt. Ltd spent nearly ₹16 crore in marketing and advertising during the sale period to capture new users, Albinder Dhindsa, co-founder and CEO at Grofers, told Mint in an interview.

"The marketing and promotion paid off massively after no efforts for the last two years. Also, there are two things that have happened—ticket sizes have gone up even though we saw a drop in numbers on the first day and we have acquired new users," Dhindsa added. "Now that we have crossed ₹200 crore, we will have to rejig our plan for the months ahead."

Grofers, which is also set to raise funds from SoftBank Group Corp and other investors, has crossed ₹310 crore in GMV during January, according to latest numbers. Nearly 35% of the total sales were from Grofer's private label brands, Dhindsa added.

The company posted ₹700 crore in sales in FY18 and is targeting ₹2,500 crore in overall revenue this year.

BigBasket co-founder and CEO Hari Menon had said during a July interview the company was aiming to touch a $1 billion ( ₹6,865 crore) gross sales run rate by March 2019.

BigBasket (run by Supermarket Grocery Supplies Pvt. Ltd) posted a revenue of ₹1,606 crore in FY18, up from ₹1,197 crore in the previous financial year.

Delhi-NCR marks the biggest market for Grofers, which is aggressively looking at expanding in Bengaluru. "Bengaluru has come to the forefront ahead of the sale. We don't have a plan now, but will focus more on the Bengaluru market," said Dhindhsa over telephone.

Dhindsa had during a December interview indicated that Grofers was growing faster than its Bengaluru-based rival BigBasket and had closed the gap.

While BigBasket is looking to develop its offline presence through the kiosk model and private label business, Grofers is focussing on building its subscriptions through smart bachhat programme (SBC).