Spencer’s Retail acquires Meragrocer, an E-Commerce Grocery Start-up

 Omnipresent Retail, an e-commerce grocery start-up was running their business with the brand name of Meragrocer.com, is acquired by Spencer’s Retail, a hypermarket retail chain, and it will be incorporated as a wholly owned subsidiary of Spencer’s Retail.

This move will fortify Spencer’s online sales and a revenue of INR 500 Crore is expected through online grocery sales over a period of next 3-4 years. It would also help Spencer to reach its breakeven faster

The value of deal is not yet disclosed but this acquisition had costed, Spencer’s Retail, much less than what it would take to set-up an ecommerce business from the scratch.

Meragrocer started its operations last year, had 20-25 employees and is present in Delhi and Gurgaon. Spencer’s Retail is planning to launch Meragrocer in all the markets where Spencer is present.

Three entrepreneurs with experience in retail started this venture and promoters owned more than half of the equity and investors held the remaining part.

Current online grocery sales contribute to 1% of the total grocery sales but is growing at a fast pace as more and more people are adapting e-commerce channel to buy home products, fruits, vegetables, etc.

According to Techsci Research the move basically focuses towards tapping the market of local stores, which has the maximum footfall of the customers, through e-commerce platform. In hypermarket model, customer usually visits the store, not more than, once in a week and on rest of the days all the purchases are done through local stores.

Retail chains are consolidating their horizons into e-retail ecosystem in India. They are also duplicating the trend which are being followed in developed markets where there are various channels for a vendor of offer its products.