Tata Group will now be taking on the likes of Amazon India and BigBasket as it is gearing up to foray into the Indian online grocery space under the brand Starquik.
The company is expected to launch a pilot project in the coming two months, and will be a part of Trent Hypermarket, an equal joint venture between Tata and British retailer Tesco.
Tata Group is currently running operations in three formats under Star banner — Daily, Market and Hyper, with around 42 stores. With the launch of Starquik, it will shut down Star Daily to cut costs.
As foreign direct investment (FDI) is not yet allowed in retailing of multi-brand non-food products offline or online, this new initiative from Tata will be through Fiora Hypermarket (FHL). It is a subsidiary of Trent that acts as a separate service providing entity in terms of sourcing activities, warehousing and distribution.
Earlier this year, Tata Group acquired that management team and technology infrastructure of Gurgaon-based GrocerMax. The startup’s team is now helping the company in its omnichannel project to take off in catchments of Trent hypermarkets.
Morgan Stanley report suggests that the online food and grocery segment will become the fastest-growing segment, expanding at a compounded annual growth rate of 141 per cent by 2020 and contributing $15 billion, or 12.5 per cent, of overall online retail sales. Food and grocery accounts for almost 50 percent of the overall retail sales in India.