DMart and JioMart are offering deep discounts to catch up with BigBasket

Indian e-commerce is booming and grocery is the hottest segment within that. While everyone from Amazon and JioMart to DMart and Grofers use discounts as the primary luure, a recent research report says that BigBasket is leading the pack despite offering lesser discounts compared to most other players.

This would be music to the ears of executives at the Tata Group, which bought BigBasket in May 2021 for an undisclosed amount, with the goal of adding it to its up and coming super app Tata Neu.

According to the report, BigBasket has about 9 million monthly active users, compared to JioMart and DMart’s 5 million each. Though the company has a discount rate of about 14%.

JioMart and DMart, on the other hand, offer discounts at a good 17-18%.

Other e-grocers — Amazon, Grofers, Flipkart — offer a discount rate of 10%.

Source: Jefferies report

Jefferies noted that it has the highest discounts in packaged foods, beverages and home care whereas JioMart is best suited for dairy, basic staples and personal care.
The report noted that DMart and JioMart’s discounts have remained steady since January 2021, Grofers has noticed a decrease and BigBasket witnessed a spike in discounts.



DMart, which has made a name for itself for offering one of the most competitive prices at its stores, seems to be gunning for that title in online retail as well.

This would have been necessitated by the fact that 80% of the company’s stores were affected by the second wave of the pandemic leaving the $37 billion retailer to put its onus on online supplies.

The shares of Avenue Supermarts, the company which operates DMart chain of stores, have gained 53% this year so far.

BigBasket — founded in 2011 by Hari Menon, Vipul Parekh, VS Ramesh, Abhinay Choudhari and VS Sudhakar — found itself at the center of the online grocery revolution last year as the country stepped into the lockdown.

There was a week-long waiting on platforms like Grofers and BigBasket during the nationwide lockdown, and this led to several new players like Snapdeal, Zomato and others entering the segment temporarily. Meanwhile, DMart, JioMart, Amazon and Flipkart expanded their operations.

The Indian online grocery segment clocked $3 billion sales in the calendar year 2020. Overall, groceries segment grew 80% in the financial year 2021, from the anticipated 40%. BigBasket, on the other hand, claims to have recorded gross sale of ₹8,000 crore ($1.1 billion) in FY21.

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