Case Study: BigBasket Became Online Grocery Marketplace with Digital Marketing Strategies

About Bigbasket

BigBasket.com with 18000+ products and 1000+ brands listed on their catalogue is known to be India’s largest online food and grocery store. It offers a wide range of options in every category to provide you with the best quality products at the lowest prices which include – fresh Rice and Dal, Fruits and Vegetables, Spices and Seasoning’s, Packaged products, Beverages, Personal care products, Meats, and many more.

As of now, BigBasket is a purely internet based company .

How BigBasket started?

It all began in 1999, when Hari Menon along with five of his friends- VS Sudhakar, Vipul Parekh, Abhinay Choudhari and V S Ramesh launched their online retail website called ‘Fabmart’. Even though they did manage to get some traction but since their idea was way ahead of its time, they could not shake the masses.

They decided to start their online business again and focused all the energies on ‘Fabmall’, their physical retail chain of grocery stores. They also merged this chain with another grocery retail chain called – ‘Trinethra’. Within a period of seven years they expanded their business to 200 stores across Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala. At that point of time they decided to sell their business to Aditya Birla Group but Krishnan Ganesh an entrepreneur concluded to go ahead with it. And finally in December 2011, they launched BigBasket.com!

They failed to get some traction as their idea was way ahead of its time, so they could not work for the masses.

That was the time when they all decided to put the online business on the backseat and focus totally on ‘Fabmall’ with all their energy. Fabmall was their physical retail chain of grocery stores. They too merged this chain with another grocery retail chain known as ‘Trinethra’.

Implementing many strategies and with hard work, in a matter of seven years, they succeeded to expand their business to 200 stores across Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala. Around the same time, they also decided to sell-off the business to Aditya Birla Group.

Funding Received

Soon after their launch, they received their first funding of $10million from ChrysCapital co-founder Raj Kondur and Ascent Capital.

There were 15 funding rounds of more than $100 million in the whole year of 2014. So far this year, BigBasket has raised $150 million in fresh round of funding led by UAE’s Abraaj Group to expand its services into smaller cities. Existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners and Helion Advisors along with International Finance Corp and Sands Capital also participated in the round.

Business Model

When BigBasket started its operations, it adopted the ‘just-in-time model’ means  they were purchased-to-order. In this model, the delivery boy directly picks up the item from the retailer, and directly delivers it to the customer.

Current Scenario

BigBasket has been implementing a Hyper-local strategy, wherein, it has joined hands with more than 1,800 neighbourhood grocery stores across India to deliver goods within an hour.

Looking for the current scenario – BigBasket now processes almost 20,000 orders a day, with the involvement of 2000 team members.

Earlier they had acquired a hyper-local delivery start-up ‘Deliver’, to further strengthen its delivery service. Although, the company still functions as an independent firm, but the co-founders of Deliver have also been included in the management team of BigBasket.

This acquisition has helped BigBasket in their Express Delivery model, to delivery groceries in one hour.

Moving on, around the mid of 2015, BigBasket also roped in Bollywood actor – ‘Shah Rukh Khan’ as their brand ambassador, for an undisclosed sum; following which, they also launched a high volume television, digital and print media campaign as well.

They are now operational in 20 cities which include six metros, and are in plan to expand to 50 more tier two cities soon. They will also be opening 8 large warehouses in metro cities.