Grofers to add 700 kirana stores onto network, eyes USD 1 bn revenue by year-end

Softbank-backed Grofers aims to cross the USD 1 billion revenue mark by the end of the year, helped by strong growth in both its online and offline businesses. The company had started operations as an online grocery platform. Earlier this year, it had said it is working with brick-and-mortar stores in Delhi-NCR to convert them into its own branded outlets.

"In the first phase, we associated with 100 stores and currently we have 300 stores under the program and this will be scaled to 1,000 by year-end, all in Delhi NCR region," Grofers founder Saurabh Kumar told PTI. The plan is also to expand this program to Mumbai and Bengaluru by the end of the year, he added.

"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," Kumar said. He added that the distribution expansion to offline Kirana stores earlier this year has helped in increasing penetration of the G-brands.

He said the offline model has bolstered the company's business. "We help partner stores optimize their operations and improve their profitability by accessing our supply chain and technology," he added. Kumar added that partnering with offline stores has helped Grofers push its homegrown brands (private label products) in the market as well. "We are now expanding into new markets and are aiming to partner with 50,000 offline stores in the next 30-36 months," he said.

The Kirana stores are converted into Grofers-branded stores and they sell Grofers' private label products that are usually priced 30-40 percent less. Grofers currently has over 1,200 products spread across categories like kitchen staples, FMCG products, personal hygiene products, and household needs.

The company also plans to increase its range to 1,500 products by the end of 2020, Kumar said.

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