The company pushes for increasing usage of electric vehicles and bikes for its end-to-end last-mile delivery operations
Bengaluru, September 5, 2019: bigbasket (www.bigbasket.com), India’s largest online supermarket, has established itself as a pioneer in the introduction of electric vehicles (EVs) for its last-mile delivery operations across metros. The grocery major currently has 150 e-vans and 50 e-bikes and plans to increase the numbers to 1000 vans and 2000 bikes within the next one year. It first introduced Mahindra EVs, e-Supro model, in 2016 for operations in Delhi/NCR.
Over the years, bigbasket has worked with multiple e-van OEMs like Gayam Motors and Euler Motors and certified them for their operations. The company is also progressively introducing e-bikes from brands including Hero, Okinawa, Li-on, and Greaves Cotton in its operations. Through the aggressive push for EVs, bigbasket has been able to lower its delivery costs associated with the delivery of products.
Speaking about this, Mr. K B Nagaraju, Chief Customer Experience Officer, bigbasket, said, “bigbasket has always been committed to carrying out its processes in a sustainable manner. Apart from undertaking other environment-friendly initiatives, we were the first to introduce electric vehicles (EVs) for our last-mile delivery operations back in 2016. Our scale and push for sustainable and renewable energy have resulted in tangible savings and a positive contribution towards the environment. Though there has been a significant push for EVs in the recent budget, there is a need to address the issue of bank finance to OEMs and small transporters and individual buyers as long as the vehicles are used for commercial transportation.”
bigbasket also continuously strives to address challenges related to the deployment of EVs. Some of these include the apprehensions on the part of banks in terms of managing delinquency in loan repayment; availability of charging infrastructure, etc. The company has made efforts to resolve some of these challenges by providing charging infrastructure, at times even free of cost, to EV transporters.
bigbasket’s operations have expanded to 26 cities in India recording about 2.5 lakh customer orders per day and it serves a registered customer base of 15 million. With the recent funding, bigbasket became the latest entrant to India’s unicorn club. bigbasket aims to double its revenue to USD 1 Billion by March 2020.
About bigbasket
bigbasket was founded in December 2011 in Bangalore by a team of five – V S Sudhakar, Hari Menon, Vipul Parekh, V S Ramesh and Abhinay Choudhari. The team has both offline and online retail experience, as they had earlier set up India’s first e-commerce site FabMart.com in 1999, and then established the Fabmall – Trinethra chain of more than 200 grocery supermarket stores in southern India. Servicing over 15 registered customers, bigbasket has grown into India’s largest online supermarket with over 30,000 products from over 1000 brands and presence in 26 cities across the country. bigbasket’s online store covers the whole gamut of grocery products across various categories: Fresh Fruits & Vegetables, Grocery & Staples, Beverages, Bakery & Dairy, Branded Foods, Meat& Eggs, Personal Care and Home care & household products. bigbasket is committed to making life simpler and grocery shopping a breeze!
