"Let's complement the kiranawallah and get him more business"

Albinder Dhindsa’s and Saurabh Kumar’s Grofers, a logistics service that delivers from your trusted kiranawallah and other merchants is complementing the grocery stores, organising the supply chain and getting the order at the customer’s doorstep in 90 minutes.

In a candid conversation with Dhindsa, Co-founder at Grofers, Retailer Media talks about the shift to the B2C model, the new set of supply chain and customer related challenges, and the growing city presence owing to an overwhelming customer response.     

When was Grofers started and what was the initial idea behind it?

It started in December of 2013. We started with a completely B2B model where we used to do the last mile run for local merchants; merchants who dealt in grocery, the kiranawallahs and the pharmacies to start with. The idea was to take away all the pain of managing delivery of orders from all the players and to empower them by making the supply chain organised. And whenever someone placed an order on the mobile app, they would call us and we will do the last mile transfer for them. That was what Grofers did initially.

How has been your growth story in the space and what potential of growth you would see for yourself in the future?

We have been fortunate enough to establish ourselves in the industry. We have scaled up pretty well. Right now, we are working with 500 merchants in four cities. We are handling over 1500-2000 deliveries a day in these cities. The B2B model is now a B2C model. It was converted in the December of 2014 and in five months, we have seen immense growth.

Our customers are happy with the services we are providing, but we also believe that there is a lot more to be done. I personally think there is a lot of opportunity in the space. The idea is to organise the whole sector, and there is still a long way to go to solve that problem. The supply chain in the Retail sector in India is very unorganised and it’s a long way to go from here.

Could we call Grofers a marketplace or an e-grocer?

We can be called a marketplace, sure, but we are not only e-grocers. We do a lot more than grocery. We currently deal in seven-eight different categories: grocery, bakery, flowers, fruits and vegetables, basic/daily needs’ items, cosmetics, furniture, and pet care products. The idea behind Grofers is that for anything and everything you want to buy from the local market around your home, you can open our mobile app and shop through Grofers. We would deliver anything from the said categories within 90 minutes. So, you do not have to go five different merchants for five different things you want. Keep adding things to your cart and place the order. We will do the rest.

Is there a charge for delivery?

For items above 250 rupees, we offer free delivery. And for orders below that, we charge 49 rupees.

Could you explain in depth how your business model works?

First, it is not an eCommerce platform. Grofers is only a mobile-based platform. Second, whenever a user is searching for a merchant in his location before he shops for anything, he would be able to see all the merchants who have tied up with us in the app. He places an order. We take the order, the seller gets the information, we initiate the process of delivery from a nearby station in that particular location and the delivery boy delivers the order after collecting it from your preferred merchant.

And the whole process takes around 90 minutes. But, we would not give you a different brand of the product you need. For instance, if I do not get ‘Aashirwad aata’ that you ordered and get aata of a different brand, I would wait for a confirmation from you.

See, the idea is very simple. We are trying to make the supply chain more organised, provide products at your doorstep, and help the local merchants get more business. The reach of a local merchant is limited to 2-3 kms, because as a customer you would not travel 5 kms to buy milk, would you? And through the app, the merchants get visibility even beyond the limited reach. The merchant is getting extra business and the customers can order from the convenience of their homes.

Are there any new services that you have initiated at Grofers of late?

We have added some more categories and expanded our portfolio. We have recently launched cosmetics and have partnered with the best brands like Himalaya, Body Shop etc. We will be adding more categories very soon.

How has been the response so far? Do you click with the older generation who would rather go out braving any kind of weather and buy vegetables only after having a good look? How have you ensured a consistent quality of your products?

The response has been great. There are customers that keep adding items to their cart and place a massive order for 300-odd items at once. And that is precisely what the idea is. Keep adding things to your cart and then order for the whole week, or month.

The customer could do that while watching TV or driving back. And that is the shopping behaviour we are trying to build at Grofers. The only reason we could scale up from Gurgaon to the whole of Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Pune was that a lot people did ask us to come to their city and serve them.

We still get messages from people in areas such as Goa, Chandigarh, Ranchi, Indore etc to come start our services there. There are use cases we get that we hadn’t thought we would get when we started. For example, we had never thought that parents will be a target segment for us right now. But surprisingly, they are. A lot of people came up and said that their parents can’t go out, or can’t drive down to the nearby station, so they want Grofers in that area. And it helps us evolve our system as well. We hope to expand to other cities with the belief that at these places the older generation would use Grofers app and place the order.

As for the quality, you can be rest assured that you will get a quality product. First off, we would not deliver anything whose quality is compromised. Second, if once in a while you get a product whose quality is an issue, we would replace or return the money. No questions asked.

It’s difficult to ensure quality of fruits, vegetables etc, how do you deal with product returns, or customer complaints et al?

So, we do multiple level quality checks before listing a merchant. We would never list a merchant who does not have a good image in the market. To start with, he should have a certain number of SKUs if he wants a listing with us, then he would be a merchant where people like to go and shop.

The sales and audit teams we have make sure of the basic research in the area. Plus, a lot of decisions are also taken intuitively. One can take a look at the merchant and tell whether he is trusted by people of the community, he delivers fresh produce and is himself concerned about delivering quality products.

There must be a host of terms and conditions before listing a merchant on Grofers, then?

No. Our terms and conditions are very simple. As I have told you before, the quality check happens before anything. For us, the quality of products he sells and the integrity with which he deals with his customers are two of the most important factors. Once we decide on including a particular seller in our database, he has to register with us. He has to keep up in loop when updating the existing item list, so we are on same page as to what all is available. We give him a call after receiving an order, tell him the expected time of our delivery boy so he keeps the order ready and packed. That’s it!

It all sounds very simple, but it is easier said than done. I’m sure you would face a lot of trouble doing all the people management and quality checks. It’s difficult to do all that in 90 minutes. How have you met the challenges and what all opportunities are waiting to be tapped?

See, when we started as a B2B model, it gave us a very good and matured understanding of how operations work. ‘Operations’ is everything in our business; how can we handle the manpower, what are the expectations of these people and the merchants we are working with, everything comes under the operations. And starting from a B2B model, we understood rather well how the market is behaving and what all challenges we had to ready ourselves for in terms of managing people, doing the quality checks, delivering in time and helping organise the entire supply chain in the process. So, yes, while it is a difficult job to do, we never thought it to be easy, we have got to do it.

Challenges, well, there were many. Like, convincing the shopkeepers that it could be done. It was a long journey, but today they are getting more business and we have added value to their existing business. Now other businesses in the area do not have to be explained what we are doing. At the consumer end, too, there were a lot of challenges like getting them to order for fruits and veggies online. It’s not an easy thing to do in India. We have been brought up in an entirely different set up. And it is not at all easy to change the way we feel about buying vegetables online.

Sometimes, we don’t have the best of lettuce available in some markets. So, things like these can go dicey once a while, but we have worked very hard to check everything for quality. But, let me tell you, slowly and steadily we have been able to change that behaviour and today customers have a confidence in us. They know Grofers would never compromise on quality.  

How large would be Grofers today in terms of manpower and the core team?

If you talk of the core team, except the station managers and delivery boys, we are a team of over 150 people now. But if you include the whole manpower, we are quite large.

Talk to us about your future plans.

We have a huge potential in front of us. Supply chain in the retail market – and I am talking about the 99 per cent pure Retail barring the eCommerce et al – is the most unorganised sector we have in India right now. The kiranawallah does all the things in the same way as the kiranawallah used to do when my dad was young. Starting from making them understand the value proposition Grofers gets to them, to improving their business, to actually putting the systems in place, we help them with everything. It is a huge market, and grocery, mind you, is just one part of it. We strongly believe that any shopkeeper around us needs more business and should be able to complete a business transaction in a better, organised way. And I can proudly say we are helping them do that.

We are adding a lot of value in the whole system. From the customer’s side, too, Grofers is making ordering and delivery easy. Like I told you, customers today want to order five things form five different locations, but with us, it is just a few clicks and he is done.  What we have done right is that we have gone customer centric, instead of being business centric. We understand that our kind of model demands the best customer service, because delivering the right product every time is delicate and sensitive, and we are up for it.