Grofers aims $1 billion in revenue by year-end, to add 700 kirana stores

by aditi verma 2019-10-07 06:53:15

Gurugram-based online grocery platform Grofers is planning to earn USD 1 billion in revenue by the end of the year 2019, backed by very strong growth in both its online and offline businesses. The Softbank-backed online grocery company aims to add around 700 Kirana stores to the entire network.

Mr. Saurabh Kumar, the founder of Grofers, said in a statement: “We are aggressively growing our business and aiming to clock USD 1 billion in revenue by the end of 2019 with a significant focus on our in-house brands in 2019. Our G-brands contribute 40 percent to our current revenue, and we plan to increase it to 60 percent in the coming years.”

He further added that the distribution expansion to the offline Kirana stores earlier this year has helped a lot in increasing penetration of the G-brands, adding that the offline model has helped bolster the company's business. "We help partner stores optimize their operations and improve their profitability by accessing our supply chain and technology," he said.

Kumar said that partnering with various offline stores has helped Grofers brand push its home-grown brands (private label products) in the main market as well. "We are now expanding into new markets and are also aiming to partner with around 50,000 retail stores in the next coming 30-36 months," he added.

The Kirana stores are being converted into Grofers-branded stores recently and they sell Grofers' private label products that are priced 30-40 percent less than other brands. Currently, Grofers has more than 1,200 products spread across various categories such as kitchen staples, FMCG products, personal hygiene products, and household needs.

The company also has plans to increase the range of its products to 1,500 products by the end of the year 2020, Mr. Saurabh Kumar said in a statement.

Grofers is an online grocery delivery firm founded in India. It was founded by some IITians in December 2013 and is based out of the Millennium city of Gurugram. Earlier this year, the company had said it is working with various brick-and-mortar stores in the Delhi-NCR region to convert these stores into the branded outlets of Grofers. "In the first phase, we have associated with around 100 stores and currently we have 300 stores under this program and this will be scaled up to 1,000 by the year-end, all in the Delhi NCR region," Kumar said. He also said that he will be expanding this program to other metro cities such as Mumbai and Bengaluru by the end of this year.

Grofers is currently operating in 18 cities of India, namely Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune, Jaipur, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Gurugram, Noida, Ghaziabad, Kochi, Kanpur, Faridabad, Meerut, Rohtak, Bhiwadi.

Grofers has successfully raised over $200 million (over Rs 1,400 crore) in funding, led by SoftBank Vision Fund. Grofers has been pursuing profitability by trying to make a stronger presence in the cities of its operations. It is also very focused on doubling its sales to over Rs 5,000 crore by the Financial Year 2020. The company said that it is also making strategic plans to hit the capital market with an initial public offering (IPO) within the next three years or so.

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