E-commerce bears fruit, local traders feel heat

Pegged at Rs 300 crore per month, the fruits and vegetable market has been mostly been off the radar of e or mobile commerce. Industry experts say that in this segment, the customer wants to “touch and feel” before finalising their purchase. Even in malls, sale of fruits and vegetables account for less than 10 per cent of the total sales.

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BigBasket, a technology-based platform for home delivery of groceries, fruits and vegetables started its operations in Pune last December. Four months later, it’s getting 1,500 orders daily on an average.

Vipul Parekh, co-founder of BigBasket, says Pune has seen the fastest growth in their business. “A majority of the orders are from Hinjewadi and other areas, but we serve across the city. Around 99 per cent of the orders we get are from the mobile app or online,” he said.

Since December, BigBasket has served more than one lakh orders, the average size being Rs 1,400-1500.

Parekh says fruits and vegetables constitute 20 per cent of their total orders. “Fruits and vegetables we sell through our platform is of superior quality and is better packed. Once the customers get the confidence that they will get quality goods, they repeat orders,” he says.

The company has tied up with around 120 farmers in and around Pune for sourcing. “We also have tie-ups with aggregators but avoid sourcing from marketyards,” he Parekh says.

The company is planning to launch express delivery, wherein orders will be delivered within an hour.

Another start-up that has decided to enter fruits and vegetables segment in the city is the Bengaluru-based ZopNow_One, which helps in e-purchases by tying up with the Hypercity chain of malls.

Mukesh Singh, its founder and CEO, says they have started recently in Pune and serve around 200-300 orders per day. “Thanks to the access to the Hypercity inventory and our management, we are able to reach out to customers where the malls are not able to go,” he says.

Transcool, a city-based public-private partnership focusing on fruits and vegetables, would also be entering the business over the weekend.

Pavan Gurav, co-founder of Transcool, says their target customer would be the IT professionals and the growing middle class. Transcool would be supplementing its mall-on-wheels business through the e-commerce site.

Shivlal Bhosale, president of the association of fruits and vegetables sellers in the Pune Agricultural Products Market Committee (APMC), concedes the growth of e-commerce in the sector, but says the APMC reach is too huge to be challenged.

“Every day, we deal with 800 trucks of fruits and vegetables. So, the e-commerce players will not be any threat to us. As and when this platform grows substantially, we may also go for it,” he says.