Build Online Grocery website similar to BigBasket

BigBasket.com is India’s leading online grocery website store that as of now delivers groceries across 9 cities in India. Selling Groceries online has both its pros & cons. Beyond getting the orders online, online grocery website store business of managing disparate inventories with different storage requirements, sourced from a multitude of vendors that need to be picked, packed, and delivered according to the customer order at the right place, right time, and in the right shape with expected quality. 

Here you will find out a business flow of BigBasket, online Grocery website; 

Procurement:

Every city has its unique requirement according to local tastes and traditions. According to BigBasket, about 30% of the products are unique to a city. The big basket management team is very particular about selecting their buyers, as they are crucial in ensuring the quality of products sourced and at the right price.
Good Quality of products positively impacts customer satisfaction and lowers wastage due to rejects or returned orders. 

Inventory Management:

Inventory Management is again local for each city of operation. Beyond a point managing a complex inventory manually is not possible as the business demands greater efficiency and productivity. BigBasket has effectively used technology to manage inventory automatically that includes placing automatic orders as the inventory reaches re-order levels. As of 70% of their SKU are part of their inventory & 30% are procured just in time, through the latter also spend 2-3 hours in the warehouse as they are washed, cleaned, checked for quality, graded, picked and packed for customer orders.

Logistics:

Unlike most other e-commerce business, order cycles are very small in groceries businesses. Hence there is a need to manage the logistics for online grocery website effectively & with a tightly controlled delivery mechanism in place.
BigBasket follows a hub and spoke model to manage its logistics. Warehouses act as the hubs where the orders are picked and packed, and the delivery routes of the vans are the spokes that connect to the customer homes. Each city they service has multiple warehouses s as hubs and each one covers a certain area and number of households being served. All the elements of logistics are completely owned by the company. 
Delivery vans are specially designed low cost, and temperature controlled vehicles with freezing and chilling chamber so that freshness of the frozen products is not lost till they reach the customer’s doorstep.  

Order Fulfillment:

Most of the online grocery websites started by giving a generic commitment of delivering within a given time say within 4 hours of placing the order. This leads to logistics chaos. BigBasket delivers orders in 4 slots during the day, two in the morning and two in the evening. Customers can choose the slot while placing the order. With the slot system, BigBasket is able to service up to 99% orders in-time. Depending on the address of the orders for a slot, route planning is automatically done by the software and handed over to the delivery team going with the van. In case of any delay, the back-end team can track their GPS enabled vehicles and inform the customers. 

Driving Efficiency with Technology:

For online Grocery, website orders are placed using either the online portal or the mobile application. The website is a simple portal that lets you add items you want to buy through the various categories of products. Once done, you can choose a delivery slot and payment method. For online grocery website like BigBasket, technology plays a big role in managing inventory and logistics by making these processes error-free. All the items are scanned using barcode readers and put in different carts so that different types of items are not mixed. Route planning for GPS- enabled delivery vans is done using routing algorithms to ensure maximum efficiency. Each delivery person carries a smartphone with a delivery application installed on it. The customer has to enter a pin on the device to confirm delivery and this acts as proof of delivery and order completion.

BigBasket is an example of online grocery website that is a combination of deep domain knowledge of grocery retailing business combined with smart use of technology.