Flipkart starts pilot project for grocery segment foray

HYDERABAD: Flipkart has undertaken a pilot programme in Bengaluru, aiming to foray into grocery segment and may expand it to other places across the country, a senior official said here on Tuesday.

The homegrown e-commerce player plans to launch the grocery service shortly, Anil Goteti head of marketplace, Flipkart told reporters without giving any timeframe for the launch.

"We will be opening up groceries very very innovatively when we launch...the pilot is going on in Bengaluru. We will be launching it (groceries) in few months time.

"We will be doing more pilots (on grocery) across different cities. We will be coming out with very innovative and unique propositions that India does not have today," Goteti said.

He said the e-commerce player which currently has a base of over 100 million users is working towards bringing 500 million customers on its platform in the coming few years.

Replying to a query, he said the recently introduced Goods and Services Tax (GST) has not impacted sales and almost all of Flipkart vendors migrated to the new tax regime from July 1.

Goteti said the online marketplace recently has set up a new warehouse for large appliances here. It already has a 2.2 lakh sq ft automated fulfillment centre in Gundapochampally on the outskirts of the city.

"With over 28 lakh unique customers, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana together form one of the biggest and fastest growing markets in Southern India for Flipkart. While Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Nellore, Guntur and Tirupati are the top performing cities for the e-commerce company," he added.

The official however, did not reply when asked if the company has plans to open any new fulfillment centres in the near future. NEW DELHI: Online retailing major Flipkart is believed to have sent a revised offer of $900950 million to buy smaller rival, Snapdeal, according to sources.

The Bengaluru-based firm has offered to pay the said amount for buying Snapdeal's online marketplace and Unicommerce, two people privy to the development said.

In 2015, Snapdeal had acquired Unicommerce, an e-commerce management software and fulfilment solution provider. The sources did not wish to be identified as the deal is still under discussion and yet to be finalised. The board of Snapdeal (run by Jasper Infotech) will now meet to consider the offer and is most likely to accept it, one of the persons said.

The final amount would be subject to minor adjustments for cash and equivalent assets, the person added.

Snapdeal's board has already rejected a takeover offer of $800850 million (around Rs 5,500 crore) from Flipkart. In case the Snapdeal board accepts the new offer from Flipkart, the two parties will negotiate a sale and purchase agreement (SPA).

However, it will still be a few weeks before the deal closes, said the other person. Flipkart and Snapdeal did not respond to emailed queries. Snapdeal is also negotiating separate deals for Freecharge (mobile payments unit) and Vulcan Express (logistics business), which are likely to be closed in the coming weeks.

The sale of Snapdeal could also see Softbank making an equity infusion in Tiger Globalbacked Flipkart after the completion of the deal.

There have been reports that another suitor, Infibeam, is in the race to acquire Snapdeal, even though the Ahmedabadbased company has termed it "purely speculative".

Softbank, Snapdeal's largest investor, has been proactively mediating the sale for the past few months. The board of Snapdeal also has representation from its founders (Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal), Nexus Venture Partners and Kalaari Capital.