India's top e-commerce player Flipkart plans to move into the groceries space and make a renewed push in the online furniture business, as it expands its product portfolio and looks to outmanoeuvre global giant Amazon.com in a burgeoning Indian market.
Flipkart Chief Executive Binny Bansal said the home-grown e-commerce player plans to begin experimenting with grocery sales next year and scale up operations over a three year period.
"There's definitely room to build a profitable grocery business, but it's hard. That doesn't mean it's not possible, but it's hard," Bansal told Reuters in an interview on Sunday.
Amazon has already begun to pilot grocery sales in select Indian cities.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch sees the value of goods sold online in India jumping tenfold to $188 billion by 2025.
Bansal said fashion will remain Flipkart's best-selling category for the next few years, but he sees online groceries as having the potential to grow as big as fashion and electronics in the next six to eight years.
Earlier in 2016, Flipkart-owned fashion portal Myntra bought rival Jabong for $70 million to create India's largest online fashion retailer.
FURNITURE POTENTIAL
Bansal said Flipkart is also eyeing making deeper inroads in the online furniture space.
Indian websites such as Urban Ladder and Pepperfry have just begun to fuel the demand for online furniture sales in India, a country where many still prefer traditional carpenters and local stores.
Flipkart currently sells furniture but plans to relaunch the store in about three to four months and add more variety.
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