The past, present and future of grocery E-commerce in India

Abstract

The Indian retail space has evolved a lot over the past few years. Traditionally, Indians are used to visiting the local market for their day to day needs and even the festive shopping occasions. In most cities, towns and even villages, there are designated markets for different types of items and these markets used to be full of a bunch of small retail outlets. But, the retail scene started changing with the onset of supermarkets and hypermarkets in cities. Shopping malls came in existence and outlets of brands moved to those posh locations. Along with retail outlets of brands, multi-brand retail outlets also sprung up and got positioned in the shopping malls primarily. Around the same time, supermarkets and hypermarkets also came into existence with the concept of discount stores which was already prevalent in the US. The traditional retail stores also existed in parallel and that segment was also growing but the growth was less than the growth in the underlying economy because a portion of the pie was being taken by the new channels. Off late, the concept of retailing is undergoing another major change whereby e-commerce is coming up with offerings in almost all aspects of retailing. The new term that has been coined is “e-tailing” and India has seen the birth and growth of several home grown e-tailing companies. The e-commerce space has been booming in the last decade and this space has seen massive investments which are yet to break-even. The potential is massive and hence all the companies backed by giants with deep pockets are investing so as to increase the size of the pie and also capture a larger portion of the pie.