, Google’s “Universal errands” start-up Dunzo and the launch of Swiggy Stores last month Takeaway unicorn company Swiggy has also quietly entered the field of grocery distribution.

In the first half of 2018, India’s online grocery market was hot, and Walmart’s Flipkart returned to the field two years after shutting down the grocery distribution application. In May 2018, Flipkart launched Supermart. Originally served only to users in Bangalore and later extended to other cities. At the same time, the company also plans to open its own physical store, in line with the number one rival Amazon.

And its rival e-commerce giant Amazon, in 2016, first entered the grocery distribution field with Prime Now (formerly Amazon Now). In spite of the initial two-hour home delivery service for all users, in mid-2018, the company announced that the service was restricted to Amazon Prime users and turned it into a standalone app. In the same year, Amazon launched the Amazon Pantry service on its main shopping app, with a one-to-two-day delivery time.

In August of this year, Amazon’s 12-year-old global online grocery service Amazon Fresh entered India and was integrated into major websites and apps. The service promises to deliver groceries within two hours.

However, the CEO of Grofers believes that because of their different audiences, they will not compete directly with these big companies.

“Amazon’s grocery service is aimed at high-end customers, as can be seen from the goods and prices they offer. They promise to distribute fruits and vegetables within 2-4 hours, and we have recently begun to adopt this approach. However, only try Now, I will think about whether this can last for a long time,” Dhindsa said.

From the different offline collaboration strategies of Amazon and Grofers, Dhindsa seems to be right about Amazon. Grofers primarily works with small and medium-sized businesses, while Amazon works with large retail chains.

In September last year, Amazon and the Indian private equity fund Samara Capital will be the retail company of the Aditya Birla Group.Re income is under the arm. A year later, Amazon acquired a 49% stake in Future Coupons Ltd., which operates retail chains including Big Bazaar, EasyDay and Heritage Fresh.

“We don’t worry about Amazon or Flipkart getting into this space,” Dhindsa said. He also commented on the two companies: “They have ventured into so many vertical markets, so you can try this market and see if you are suitable. So far, we have not taken specific targets for Amazon and Flipkart. Strategy.”

Dhindsa believes that not every company is suitable for the grocery market – even those with strong capitals don’t have to rely on money to get a good start. He believes that if you want to achieve basic economies of scale, companies must perform well in technology and market cooperation.

“You must be good at reading and understanding the market, and you need to solve many problems in the implementation process,” Dhindsa said. “The (groceries) market requires a lot of money, so a company needs both financial reserves and expertise. Specifically, market knowledge, execution capabilities, and the ability to solve everyday problems are essential.”

At the same time, BigBasket, which received Alibaba’s investment, also accelerated its pace last year, acquiring milk distribution startups RainCan and Morning Cart, and intelligent vending machine company Kwik24. In March 2019, the company was established eight years ago. The grocery distribution company raised $150 million under the leadership of South Korea’s Mirae Asset – Naver Asia Growth Fund, the British CDC Group and existing investor Alibaba, and ranks among the unicorn companies.

When talking about competitors in the market, Dhindsa said that they currently only use BigBasket as their main competitor. He said: “Although the media believes that BigBasket has a higher market share than Grofers, we now have a 50% market share, which is more than BigBasket.” English station KrASIA has not been able to verify this statement.

Translation | Emily@熊猫译社

Edit | Pan Shen@出海

图 | Oriental IC

Small and small pieces:

Before there are industry giants, there are super applications, how can it be so difficult for local startups to grow and develop? The first step in killing the encirclement is to find the right position and choose the right strategy. I hope that I can transform into a humanoid algorithm, from the “out of the sea” along the way.