Now, Godrej Nature's Basket ups e-com play, goes pan-India

With online grocery retail picking steam in the country, international gourmet food and grocery retailer Godrej Nature's Basket (GNB) has set itself a target of 10-fold growth in business by the end of 2015-16.

To achieve this, the company has gone pan-India with its e-commerce platform www.naturesbasket.co.in, expanding the network from five cities at present to 125 cities across 24 states.

With this move, GNB has now attained the status of being the only omni-channel food and grocery retailer in India with a nationwide footprint including all metros, state capitals and major Tier I and II cities.

Speaking to dna, Tanya Dubash, executive director and chief brand officer, Godrej Industries Ltd, said it is an important business milestone for the company that shaped the future of international gourmet foods in the country.

"The (online) development now allows us to make available over 5,000 stock keeping units (SKUs) across 3,100 pin codes in the country. Through our Pan-India operations, we are expecting about 10x growth in the online revenues over the year owing to our renewed thrust in e-commerce," said Dubash, adding that currently 5% of the overall business of GNB comes from e-commerce.

Launched three years ago, the online platform brought in a lot of learning for the company, as a result of which, the website was relaunched in April 2015. "This was done through a modified and a highly developed platform and remodelled back-end operations. Accordingly, the website now offers ready-to-eat food, a large range of recipe-based food ingredients and visually appealing content that now allows consumers to learn new recipes, cooking processes, techniques, etc.," said Mohit Khattar, managing director, Nature's Basket Ltd.

In terms of online presenting a larger opportunity for grocery retailing, Khattar said that the online market currently contributes less than 1% of the overall food market. However, this number is expected to grow rapidly considering a large number of consumers are moving online. Industry experts project this number to reach 3% by early 2016," he said, adding that internationally, online grocery retailing is growing seven times as compared to brick-n-mortar.

While she did not share financials, Dubash added that the overall business has come a long way since launching in 2005 and the current efforts are directed towards taking the company to its next level of growth. Company officials claimed that, between 5% and 10% of the $500 billion grocery market is expected to move to e-commerce and mobile-commerce. And GNB's presence in the e-commerce space with its own website and e-stores on e-marketplace operators like Snapdeal and Amazon, coupled with mobile application on the Android and iOS platforms will enable reaching the ambitious growth plans in the coming years.

Khattar said the company is already working on adding another 40-60 cities to the network and is well-positioned to touch the 200-mark by fiscal end. "We will leverage on our presence in existing cities while gradually building relationships in new markets over a period of time. The beauty of expanding online is the very fact that it's not capital intensive and once you have the basics in place, the rollout is easy and quick," he said.

GNB currently boasts of 33 supermarkets across five cities of including Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Pune and Hyderabad. The retailer's offerings include 10,000 SKUs including a host of international and domestic wines, cold cuts, meats, cheese, organic foods and a large variety of pastas, noodles, beverages, exotic and rare ingredients, meals, sauces, preserves and packaged food from around the world. While majority of sourcing is through vendors and importers, a small percentage is also procured using in-house expertise.

Elaborating on the offerings, Khattar said every item in the assortment is hand-picked from the very best that Europe, Australia, Asia and the US have to offer. "A differentiated business model, GNB caters to the refined needs of urban consumers for irresistibly authentic world food and ingredients. Customers across the country can now choose from a wide range of exclusive and hard-to-find products to be delivered at their doorstep. However, only non-perishable items are currently available for delivery to customers pan-India," said Khattar adding that GNB also has a range of products under three in store brands viz. Healthy Alternatives, L'Exclusif and Desi Nature.