Flipkart grocery business expands presence from 9 to 1,800+ towns in 1.5 years - Hindustan Times
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Flipkart grocery business expands presence from 9 to 1,800+ towns in 1.5 years

Published on Nov 16, 2022 11:02 AM IST

In an exclusive interview with Hindustan Times, Smrithi Ravichandran, Vice President and Head of Grocery, Flipkart, spoke about the scaling up of the grocery business in the past two years, the challenges faced along the way and the roadmap for the future

Smrithi Ravichandran, Vice President and Head of Grocery, Flipkart
Smrithi Ravichandran, Vice President and Head of Grocery, Flipkart
ByHT Brand Studio

One of the most important businesses for e-commerce giant Flipkart is its grocery business, which has grown from being a nine-city business to one with a presence across 1,800 towns over the past one and a half years. But, delivering high-quality grocery products to millions of customers in a time-sensitive and quality-controlled manner can be a challenging task.

In a special conversation with Hindustan Times, Smrithi Ravichandran, Vice President and Head of Grocery, Flipkart spoke about the scaling up of the grocery business in the past two years, the challenges faced along the way, and the roadmap for the future.

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“We are present in more than 10,000 PIN codes today, which is what gives us a huge competitive edge. There is so much diversity in India that servicing 28 states is no mean task, as we strive to understand what they need from their household requirements on a day-to-day basis, stocking that up and working with local sellers and local farmers to make deliveries possible,” said Ravichandran.

Over the last year and a half, the grocery wing of Flipkart has ramped up its facilities to about 23 fulfillment centers, spread across 27.5 lakh square feet, to service 1800+ towns and has made several innovations to offer a distinguished customer experience.

“We have upped a lot of the user experience features on the Flipkart app. Today, we have a vernacular app interface and are giving open-box deliveries of groceries because it is a significant need for the customer. We also have several credit offerings, which is similar to the kisht which the local kirana stores give to their communities,” she further said.

In keeping with Flipkart’s key value of inclusion, Flipkart launched new fulfillment centers in Guwahati and Coimbatore, both of which are completely women-led, thereby enabling the local women communities to participate in their growth story. Each of the centers generates livelihood for more than 1,000 people in each of these regions.

Flipkart has also been partnering with Farmer Producer Associations, or FPOs since 2021 to enable the growth of local farming, as well as enable market access for them. “One of the biggest agendas that we started off this business with was to actually build a very resilient and inclusive Agri-Supply chain. We have started working with about 300 FPOs across all states in the country. We have built a capacity to train about 10,000 farmers so far and we are able to bridge the gap between what the farmers produce and what the consumers need. This entire processing is taken care of because the farmer now has the knowledge as to what the customer needs and is able to really produce the right kind of output,” she said.

Flipkart grocery works with local food processors, especially for products like staples as the end product needs a bit of processing at the end. This helps create a holistic ecosystem that works efficiently and delivers fresh produce right from the farm to the fork.

Disclaimer: This article has been produced on behalf of the brand by the HTBS team.

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