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E-tailer bigbasket aims to have 1,000 e-vans and 2,000 e-bikes by 2020
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Tuesday, 10 September, 2019, 14 : 00 PM [IST]
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Our Bureau, Bengaluru
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Bigbasket, India’s largest online supermarket, currently has 150 e-vans and 50 e-bikes, and plans to increase the numbers to 1,000 vans and 2,000 bikes by 2020. The grocery major, which has established itself as a pioneer in the introduction of electric vehicles (EVs) for its last-mile delivery operations across metros, 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 (original equipment manufacturers) 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 delivery of products.
Speaking about this, K B Nagaraju, chief customer experience officer, bigbasket, said, “bigbasket has always been committed towards 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,” he added.
Bigbasket also continuously strives to address challenges related to 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 $1 billion by March 2020.
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