Grofers Success Story and How it Achieved Success in unorganized Industry

Grofers Success Story and How it Achieved Success in unorganized Industry Grofers is a Gurugram based Indian Online grocery delivery business which was founded in the year of 2013. The e-commerce start-up platform provides to its customers the facility of shopping for their daily needs products such as groceries, vegetables, bakery items, baby care items and many more. As of December 2018, the company has raised approximate $442.5 from investors that include SoftBank, Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global.

Founder - Albinder Dhindsa Grofers was founded by IIT graduates Albinder Dhindsa and Saurabh Kumar as online platform which would facilitate the delivery of groceries for customers from neighborhood stores. During that period when Grofers was founded, there were majority of start-ups coming up in almost every city. However, with investors such as Sequoia Capital and SoftBank, Grofers managed to expand its operations and reach and went on to compete with market leaders such s Big Basket.

The Formation of Grofers – How It all Began

The founders of Grofers, Albinder Dhindsa and Saurabh Kumar met each when they both were working for the Cambridge Systematics. They both kept in touch with other after leaving their respective jobs, however they had no clear intention of pursuing any entrepreneurial ambitions.

COO - Saurabh Kumar Going forward few years later, both Albinder & Saurabh noticed significant gap in the logistics, or the delivery industry and they sensed an opportunity which was their to grab. What both of them noticed that there were majority of transactions that took place between the consumer and merchants were still unorganized in the hyperlocal market. Therefore, both of them got together and they began to work on an idea which laid the foundation of their start-up.

Putting their plan into action, both Albinder and Saurabh launched their app in in 2013 and named it One number. The start-up was aimed at providing the facility of on-demand pickup as well as drop service from retail shops such as grocery, pharmacy, restaurants for the customers. This was primarily a one-stop solution to satisfy the local delivery needs of the customers.

However, both of them realized soon that majority of orders on their app are for groceries and for pharmacy products. Hence, they decided to change their business and took no time in doing so. It was then, they started focussing only on groceries as well as pharmacy and this was the time when the company was rebranded and given the name Grofers.

Business Funding Grofers managed to receive its first funding which was 500 thousand dollars in the year of 2014. It was in the year 2015, the company went on to raise $10million in its Series A funding from the firm Tiger Global Management. In the same year, Grofers managed to attract a funding of $35 Million in its Series B round of funding. Subsequently, the company continued to attract investment from various investors in the following years of its operations. Grofers biggest funding till date has come from SoftBank which was amounted $61.5 M. Given below is the list of investors that have over the years provided funding to Grofers. 

Cyriac Roeding

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Roeding Ventures

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Tiger Global Management

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SoftBank

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Sequoia Capital

Grofers Business Model Grofers is a delivery service provider and logistics system which provides operates one B2C model. The primary function of the Grofers is to deliver grocery to its customers as well as vegetables, fruits and items of daily needs to its customers within a time of few hours. Grofers provide the delivery service by maintaining the stock for products in warehouses owned by it.

The company associates with small and large grocery stores in cities of its operations. The delivery boys then pick up the order and deliver the same to the customer to fulfill the order. To be able to place the order, you can go online and place it using Grofer’s website or the app available at major playstores.

Grofers story of success and how it grew into becoming what we see today?

Initially Grofers started as B2B (Business 2 Business) model, however it soon realized that this way it cannot capture the opportunities in the market. So, to exploit the endless possibilities, Grofers turned into hyper-local delivery network.

Now the main motive of the Grofers was to provide the solution for the customers and for that they went to nearby stores for facilitating the delivery.

The revenue model which came from this arrangement was pretty sorted, they simply earned their revenue via commission that they would get from the retailers.

However, when the Grofers started they had to face certain hurdles which are more or less common in nature that start-ups end up facing which was about creating awareness and making the business popular. In the next few months of its formation, Grofers ended up adding 7 stations to its network and it was fulfilling almost 3000 orders within the week and was also able to sign new deals.

To put it Mathematically, after the three months into their starting up, they had reached to a stage where they were able to process orders worth Rs. 8 lakh.

Relying on their continuous growth, Grofers came out with its mobile application to facilitate more orders.

Moreover, the company also went on to increase the strength of its employees to around 700 in its offices spread across different cities. During the initial few years, what was even more interesting to know that the online e-commerce platform did not run any advertising campaign to promote its activities and business.

Competition The online basic need advertise has developed big time in India since it was conceived. With new player signifying the market and huge numbers of the enormous disconnected general store going on the web everybody needs to keep up their amusement to hold the current clients and to pull in new ones. One of the enormous name in online basic need market and one of the greatest contenders for Grofers is BigBasket. Grofers right presently is working in 17 urban communities which is one not exactly BigBasket propelled in 2011 which is two years before Grofers. Grofers has likewise been speculators most loved and raised around 150 million dollars in most recent 4 years.

Other Key players in the market are Pepper Tap and Zopnow and there is new enormous participant Amazon. Amazon is the greatest name in web-based business and has come to e-basic supply advertise. The organization began its activity in December 2016 in spite of the fact that we don't have any official information the organization had the capacity to pull in numerous clients because of its name in the E-business showcase.

Grofers managed to succeed with D-Mart model for online Groceries Grofers changed its estimating methodology a year ago to target lower middle class and working-class customers, and the outcome is a 300% development in income and decreased misfortunes.

About a year back, online goods start-up Grofers changed its plan of action to reproduce India's most productive and quickest developing extensive current retailer D-Mart. The Gurugram-based start-up, which professes to have value investment funds at standard with D-Mart, decreased its loaded things and now focusses around the lower white-collar class and working-class shoppers. The

outcome has been a 300% development in top line and decreased misfortunes, said Albinder Dhindsa, fellow benefactor and CEO, Grofers in a meeting to Mint.

Grofers finished FY18 with sales incomes of Rs700 crore, up from Rs250 crore a year back. Losses have continued as before at Rs 200 crore for both financial years 2017 and 2018.

Expected Growth in Future Grofers hopes to end FY19 with income of Rs2,200 crore. It left March with month to month sales of Rs120 crore, up from Rs26 crore a year back. BigBasket, then again, has sales figures of Rs 200 crore consistently and hopes to end FY19 with sales with Rs. 500 crore a month. So, the target for Grofers is set and it is looking forward to clock highest sales figures that it thinks possible.

Achievements 

In 2014, Grofers was recognized as one of the top 10 start-up’s in Delhi by YourStory.com

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in 2014, IndianWeb2.com listed Grofers amongst the top 10 promising Gurgaon-based start-ups.

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Grofers won the 'Comeback Kid' awards in ET Startup Awards 2018

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Thus, we can conclude that with its hard-work and dedication Grofers picked up growth in no time and today it is the second largest grocery delivery platform in India after BigBasket.