Advertisment

Flipkart trying its hands at grocery category

author-image
CIOL Writers
New Update
flipcart e

After failing at it the first time, Flipkart is once again looking to foray into the grocery segment. The e-commerce major is testing waters initially in Bangalore by launching the new category as 'Supermart', reports Economic Times.

Advertisment

The category has been launched on Flipkart's mobile app only for a small set of customers.

“We have done a soft launch for grocery categories at Flipkart. Currently, it is available to select customers in Bangalore. In line with our aim of transforming e-commerce in the country through technology, we want to make shopping for everyday essentials convenient for our customers, we intend to scale it up to all customers in Bangalore and take it to other cities in future,” a Flipkart spokesperson confirmed to ET.

Interestingly, the first set of customers are Flipkart's employees only who are required to order for a minimum of Rs 500. For orders over Rs 1,000, customers get free delivery.

Meanwhile, there is a bit of surprising news for Flipkart from Mutual fund investor Valic. In its latest quarterly report, Valic marked down Flipkart’s valuation slightly to about $7.9 billion—which is way below the $11.6 billion valuation at which Flipkart raised nearly $3 billion from marquee investors led by Japan’s SoftBank, Tencent Holdings, eBay and Microsoft.

Though technically Flipkart’s latest fundraising was a “down round” from its peak valuation of $15 billion, the new investment and endorsement by SoftBank was seen as a major victory for the e-commerce firm in its fight against rival Amazon India.

amazon flipkart