Ahead of the commercial launch of its grocery delivery service, Flipkart is planning to launch a pilot phase in several cities of India in order to cope-up with the rival Amazon. Currently, it is running its pilot in Bengaluru. With the pilot testing, the company is expecting to get very innovative and unique propositions that today India does not have.
The e-commerce giant is looking at the food and groceries sector to increase repeatability of orders made by customers, thereby boosting their loyalty and the overall spend on its platform.
As indicated by the Flipkart’s chief executive, Kalyan Krishnamurthy, the company is planning to enter the online grocery space, citing the scope and size of the grocery market in the country till April of the next year.
Flipkart’s entry into the grocery space, like Amazon, is expected to put more pressure on smaller players. Last week, the government approved Amazon’s investment in the food retail vertical, allowing it to stock inventory for online sales as well as open food-only offline retail outlets. BigBasket and Grofers too have submitted applications to Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion in this regard.