Nilgiris to set up online store

BANGALORE: Nilgiris Dairy Farm Ltd., the super market with 18 outlets in the country, is planning to set up an online store in the next three months. The super market's in-house software team and Planetasia of Microland will co-develop the online store.

The Bangalore-based super market, will not be making too much of an investment on its online store because it is planning to make use of its existing infrastructure - PC's and manpower. Nilgiris general manager operations Suresh Alva declined to give the actual investment in terms of figures, but said, "We already have the infrastructure, so the investment from our side will not be much, it will just be a modular expenditure." He also said, "Delivery of goods also will not be a problem because, currently Nilgiris does free door-to-door delivery of essential commodities to its customers who are residing within 2 kms radius of Nilgiris and therefore for its online store also, we will make use of the same people."

With the online store, Nilgiris plans to extend its customer service and its reach to a large audience. Despite the opening of the online store, Nilgiris will continue whenever possible to open out new outlets. Mr Alva added, "This online store will be another business of ours, and we have a long way to go." This new activity will be based on Brigade Road and depending on the business later, this would move to a different place." Nilgiris is planning to try out this activity first in Bangalore and Madras and will later on extend to other cities like

Coimbatore.

Mr Alva also added that, "We have not really made the estimate as to how much revenue we can expect from the online store. All that we are looking for is additional business and not particularly in terms of volumes." The online super market would target the upper middle class families who have a computer and an Internet account, either at home or at office. Commodities on the online store will have the same pricing as that of its super market and Nilgiris is also thinking of fixing a minimum order value on every purchase and is also looking at offering various schemes and offers on the site. Nilgiris has 18 outlets in total and is opening three more by March and in 1999-2000 it is expecting a revenue of about Rs 160-175 crore and in 2000-2001 at a growth rate of about 30-35%.