Bigbasket, an online grocery retailer, announced the opening of its new technology-driven ‘Fresho’ shop in Bengaluru on Wednesday, stepping into the offline retail market.
Tata Digital acquired the firm in May this year, and with foraying into the offline retail market it “aims at targeting the next 500 million users who have not purchased groceries online yet”, it said in a press release. This launch is aligned with Big Baskets plan to open 200 physical outlets across India by 2023 and multiply the shops 4x by 2026.
Bigbasket chief executive officer Hari Menon believes that the Fresho stores would turn out to be “game changers” as they would allow customers to purchase fruits, vegetables and groceries just like transacting cash at ATMs.
These stores will “offer high-quality products at extremely competitive prices”, the company said.
Bigbasket, which embarked on the journey of offline retailing by launching Fresho stores at Bengaluru’s Basaveshwar Nagar, is based on a “channel-agnostic approach” to connect with customers.
As per the press release, Orders can be placed online from these stores as per customers’ convenience, it said.
The Fresho stores would be a blend of technology such as ‘self-billing counters’ with video AI tools that will let customers pick items of their choice and weigh them at the counter through automatic computer vision that can identify the items and generate bills accordingly, the company said.
“The produce stocked at the stores is backed by our extensive ‘Farmer Connect programme’ where we partner with over 30,000 farmers across the country to source fruits and vegetables directly. There is complete traceability for all fresh produce built-in our supply chain which allows us to communicate details of the farmer for each product to our customers,” Menon said.