Spencer’s forays into grocery e-tail in NCR and Kolkata

KOLKATA: Spencer's Retail is piloting its own food and grocery ecommerce venture in the national capital region (NCR) and Kolkata, and has also initiated talks with three leading marketplaces including Amazon to list as a seller. The country’s fourth largest food and grocery retailer with 37 hypermarkets and 12 supermarkets will soon scale up the ecommerce venture in the South in another six cities, said Shashwat Goenka who heads the retail business (Spencer’s Retail) of RPSanjiv Goenka Group.

As part of the strategy, the company is revamping its supermarket stores that will now focus on smaller packs that consumers buy for their weekly or daily needs, besides turning into fulfilment centres for ecommerce.

Goenka said the company wants a larger share of the consumer’s wallet through ecommerce and hopes to achieve breakeven of the ecommerce business at the store level in 5-6 months.

“Consumers typically spend around 40-50% of their spendable amount on food and grocery purchase. Of this, consumers who shop at organised retail spend around 20% of their spendable amount and the balance goes to kiranas. We want to have a larger share of the balance portion. This would also mean either lowering or removal of minimum bill amount,” said Goenka.

Last December, Spencer’s retail acquired ecommerce startup meragrocer. com for its technical knowhow and processes.