With subscription service, online grocer Grofers aims to cross Rs 100 cr in GMV

Gurgaon-based online grocery seller Grofers said its subscription-based service, launched earlier this month, has already crossed 50,000 subscribers within two weeks.

Named ‘Smart Bachat Club’, the membership tenure ranges from one to 12 months, and members can shop daily groceries at prices as low as wholesale prices.

To be a Grofers ‘Smart Bachat Club’ member, Grofers users need to specify the membership plan to their cart while shopping. The membership will last the duration of the selected plan. In the initial phase, the Smart Bachat Club membership facility has been rolled out to Android users only.

Grofers claims this is the first loyalty programme of its kind for any online grocery player in the country. As an introductory offer, the Smart Bachat Club membership fee is Rs 49 for a month, Rs 249 for six months, and Rs 449 for 12 months.

According to a press release, members will be able to buy over 3,000 items in the quantity of their choice without having to buy in bulk. They will also be entitled to priority customer support. Of the 25 cities which Grofers operates in, the Smart Bachat Club membership will be available in the top 13 - Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Gurgaon, Noida, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Kanpur, and Jaipur.

Albinder Dhindsa, Co-founder and CEO of Grofers, said in the press release that with over 50,000 subscribers already enrolled into the club, Grofers will cross Rs 100 crore GMV this month. “This will be a fourfold growth for us in monthly GMV since February 2017,” he added.

Founded in 2013, Grofers has raised $180 million from top investors like SoftBank, Tiger Global, and Sequoia Capital, among others. Although it started out by delivering groceries procured from local stores within two hours of customers placing an order, Grofers has now moved to a scheduled next day (or even later) delivery model through its own warehouses – a model similar to competitor BigBasket. Grofers is planning to launch private label too, like its Bengaluru-based competitor who reportedly raised funding from Chinese retail giant Alibaba recently.

The latest initiative will be crucial for the company as there is strong competition from Flipkart and Amazon. The two have already got government approval to start directly retailing food products.

The press release also quotes Prashant Verma, Head of Marketing, Grofers, “At Grofers, we believe in creating ‘value’ for our customers and everything we do is focused on saving our customers’ money. A natural extension of our brand platform of ‘smart shopping’, Grofers Smart Bachat Club is a step towards realizing our vision. It helps our customers unlock even lower wholesale prices on the already low prices on the platform. From a business perspective, it would help fuel retention in addition to creating more stickiness for brand Grofers.”