Tata Group-backed BigBasket forays into offline retail with launch of Fresho store in Bengaluru

The Tata Group-backed online grocery unicorn, BigBasket, has forayed into physical retail by opening a new technology-driven, self-service store 'Fresho' at Basaveshwar Nagar in Bengaluru. The store was inaugurated by three farmers who are a part of BigBasket's 'Farmer Connect' programme.

The launch is part of the company's vision to open 200 physical outlets pan India by 2023 and 800 stores by 2026. BigBasket said that the stores will offer high-quality products at extremely competitive prices.

The announcement also puts the Tata Group close in competition with Reliance, which has a strong presence in the offline retail grocery through Reliance Fresh as well as a proposed acquisition of Big Bazaar outlets, currently owned by Future Retail.

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BigBasket, which is a digital-first brand, has adopted a channel-agnostic approach to connect with customers. With Fresho stores, customers can now handpick fresh fruits and vegetables as well as daily essentials like bread and eggs which are stocked at the store. For accessing the company's entire range of 50,000+ products, they will have to place the order online and collect it from Fresho stores at their convenience.

BigBasket aspires to provide its customers every convenient option for buying products at competitive prices and also cater to the next 500 million users who have not transacted online, according to an official handout.  

"BigBasket has always striven to adopt a customer-first approach. This is where the 'Fresho' stores will be gamechangers in terms of making the buying of fruits, vegetables and groceries as seamless as cash transactions at ATMs," Hari Menon, co-founder and CEO of BigBasket, said.
 
The stores will give access to the next 500 million customers who have not yet started buying grocery online and create a new significant growth opportunity for BigBasket, he added.

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"The produce stocked at the stores is backed by our extensive 'Farmer Connect' programme where we partner with over 30,000 farmers across the country to source fruits and vegetables directly. There is complete traceability for all fresh produce built in our supply chain which allows us to communicate details of the farmer for each product to our customers," Menon said.  

The Fresho stores, as per the online grocery start-up, are aimed at merging the best of technology such as 'self-billing counters' integrated with video AI tools that enable customers to pick items of their choice and weigh them at the counter through automatic computer vision that can identify the items and generate bills accordingly. Thus, there will be a complete seamless, convenient shopping experience for the buyers at the store.

With this expansion, the company also aims to bring a close connect between farmers and consumers through the farm-to-fork initiative, thereby also informing the customers of the farmers supplying the respective produces, which BigBasket claims is an industry first endeavour.

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