BigBasket, a Tata group-owned grocery unicorn, has started testing its large format supermarket mode in Hyderabad. Earlier the company began testing its offline retail model with tech-driven, self-serviced fruits and vegetables outlets in Bangalore last year.
On Wednesday, the digital first startup opened its first full-fledged supermart in the country in Hyderabad’s IT corridor, with plans to replicate it in two other metros – Bengaluru and Kolkata – before expanding to tier-1 markets across India.
According to BigBasket co-founder SV Sudhakar, this is not a typical supermarket because there will be no tellers to handle the billing. Customers will be able to self-bill using technology.
He added that supermarkets will stock approximately 4,000 SKUs (stock keeping units) of fruits and vegetables, as well as dry grocery and FMCG goods, as opposed to the 50,000 or so SKUs in the online model.
Sudhakar stated that the company intends to open three more such company-owned and operated outlets in Hyderabad, five in Kolkata, and 15 in Bengaluru.
He added that the goal for the next 2-3 years is to open 400 supermarkets in the top 8-10 cities of the country in order to reach a previously untapped market of customers who are either not tech-savvy or prefer to shop in person.
Big Basket, which was acquired by Tata Group in mid-2021, currently processes over 15 million customer orders per month and has USD 1.2 billion in revenue.
According to multiple media reports, the Tata Group competes in the Indian ecommerce space with Amazon, Walmart-owned Flipkart and Myntra, and Reliance Industries.
