Growing synergy

Tanya Dubash, executive director and chief brand officer of the Godrej group told the Hindustan Times (HT) in a report dated September 11, 2015 that there could be synergistic opportunities in future between their group companies that sell goods online. "We are exploring the e-commerce space,” she said, adding that how the group moves forward "is something we have to plan.” Currently, within the group, Godrej Appliances, Godrej Properties and Godrej Consumer Products have dedicated e-commerce teams.

Tanya Dubash: exploring e-commerce

The group is "betting heavily on a common e-commerce platform to drive its gourmet retailing business,” states the report and also plans to scale up the Nature’s Basket (grocery) business across India. Besides selling its products via online retailers like Amazon and Snapdeal, Nature’s Basket acquired online grocer ekstop.com earlier this year. "With the acquisition of ekstop, we got a readymade web platform, achieving speed-to-market in e-commerce,” noted Mohit Khattar, managing director of the company, in a report in The Hindu of October 12, 2015. They now expect their online business to scale up fast and become profitable "even before our brick and mortar stores.” The chain plans to expand from five cities and the 403 PIN codes they currently deliver in, to 125 cities and 3,100 PIN codes.
Stating that sales from e-commerce accounts for only 5% of Nature’s Basket’s total revenue, the HT report mentions, quoting Khattar, that the group hopes to grow this by 10 times in the current fiscal year alone