Flipkart, India’s homegrown e-commerce platform, has ramped up its Grocery operations to now service consumers in Tier 2 and Tier 3+ cities such as Ajmer, Amritsar, Bhuj, Bokaro, Daman & Diu, Dehradun, Kanyakumari, and more, the Walmart-owned company announced on Monday. Flipkart Grocery is now available in 23 states across the country and is offering its services in 1,800 cites and 10,000 PIN codes. Consumers in these cities will now have the option to purchase groceries from a selection of over 6,000 products, the company said.
Flipkart says it has made deep investments in its Grocery business over the last two years. It has established 22 pan-India grocery fulfilment centres that have created thousands of direct and indirect jobs which have aided in giving a boost to local employment. Furthermore, this expansion is expected to help local farmers by offering them a platform to become part of the digital economy. Now, as a fresh wave of COVID-19 cases has swept across the country, Flipkart Grocery is a safe option that lets consumers buy fresh groceries without leaving their homes.
Smrithi Ravichandran, Vice President Flipkart Grocery, said, “…We are committed to bringing this shopping experience to consumers all over the country, as we strengthen our selection, invest in FPOs and fresh produce, and scale up our supply chain.” These efforts have started bearing their fruit as during this year’s The Big Billion Day event, the Grocery category saw consumers from up to 200 new cities making their first purchases on Flipkart. Flipkart Grocery has seen most of its traffic come from Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, NCR, Patna, and Pune. This category grew overall up to 2.3 times in orders and revenue in comparison to last year.
As per the recently published Flipkart-Bain report titled ‘How India Shops Online 2021′, the Grocery segment saw increased acceleration and is expected to experience more growth in a post-pandemic era. To make sure that it maintains high quality, Flipkart says it has placed stringent quality controls across its fulfilment centres and Grocery supply chain. Flipkart’s Grocery fulfilment centres are completely digitised and have quality management systems that allow products to be traceable from their raw state until they reach the consumer.