Tired of queuing up at the local grocery or mall? Try bigbasket.com.
The Bangalore-based online supermarket is now ready to serve Patna. The e-commerce venture involved in sale of household items and groceries started operations from Wednesday with an initial investment of Rs 10 crore, besides promising to provide wide avenues to the farmers of the state.
Presently operating in 26 cities, the company will deliver 7,000 different products at the residents' doorsteps.
Abhinay Choudhari, co-founder and head (new initiatives) of the company, said: "We will tie up with farmers in the state and buy fruits, foodgrain and vegetables from them. Work in this connection is on and a database of farmers who wish to work with us is being created. At present, we have 10 collection centres in India and 3,000 farmers are engaged with us. The company will open similar collection centres in different parts of Bihar as well."
The company will face stiff competition from gangafresh.com and gotmybasket.com, apart from some restaurants that take orders online.
Pawan Kumar, the co-founder of gotmybasket.com, the first online grocery store to open in Patna, told The Telegraph: "We started in Patna 13 months back when the city did not know anything about online groceries and buying fruits and vegetables online. Things have improved and on an average we are getting 40-45 orders daily. The launch of bigbasket.com will increase people's interest towards online groceries."
Thirty-four-year-old Amritanshu Shekhar, the owner of gangafresh.com sounded more positive. "I think competition is very important. We connect the groceries to the customers and are going at a steady pace since we started in August last year. The concept on buying groceries online is catching up slowly but steadily. And the coming of a big player in the same business will help it grow besides pushing us to improve and innovate more," he said.
"Online ordering is gaining momentum and we get around 10 to 12 orders daily on an average. You need to log in and click on the order with your details and address," a representative of Domino's Pizza, which has eight outlets in Patna, said.
Sham-e-awadh, an outlet at Sahdeo Mahto Marg, which specialises in tandoori food, started the system of taking online orders a year back. "We are doing well when it comes to online orders. We get around 25 to 30 online orders everyday. But then the number of customers coming to the outlet to buy is more any day," an employee of the outlet told The Telegraph.
Customers, however, had a mixed response. "So far as the buying of online groceries, veggies and fruits is concerned, I am not seeing the product until it is delivered," Rahul Singh, a government employee, said.
Authorities at bigbasket.com said it was upon the customer to decide.
"We have delivered 7.5 million orders since we started. Our revenue for the financial year 2014-2015 will touch Rs 1,000 crore. We are aware of the presence of other players in Patna. Bigbasket.com is a well-known name across the country and it is the customer who will decide based on services provided. Eighty-five per cent of orders we cater to involves vegetables and fruits, proving that our products are always fresh," Choudhari said.
