Grofers breaks even in Delhi, Kolkata; other cities on course

BENGALURU: Grofers has reached break-even in Delhi and Kolkata, its top executive said, in an indication that the grocery etailer was not losing money in these markets.

The break-even came in two ways, by reducing last-mile costs and increasing revenue, said Albinder Dhindsa, CEO of Grofers.

“A lot of it was economies of scale. By increasing our store network and density of orders, we were able to reduce costs,” he said, adding that it did not, however, include marketing or technology spends.


The company said it works with over 6,000 local store partners, which helped it improve densities in key localities and leverage the network to reduce last-mile costs to less than Rs 50.

The firm has scaled up the number of orders in Delhi and Kolkata. It draws in 45,000 orders in New Delhi at an average ticket price of Rs 1,350 and 11,000 orders a day in Kolkata, Grofers claimed.

Dhindsa said the firm was on track to end 2019 with a gross merchandise value (GMV) of Rs 4,000 crore, of which Delhi alone would contribute Rs 1,800 crore.

“Lucknow will be the next city, but right now it is a smaller city, order number wise,” he added. “The aim is that we get to a place where we can, say, pay for Bangalore’s losses with our earnings from Delhi and Kolkata.”

Grofers is now trying to capture the top-up behaviour in customers, he said.