AskMe Grocery to expand to 80 cities by end of financial year

The AskMe Group has plans to expand its Askme Grocery business from its current 38 cities to 80 cities by this financial year. Likewise, it claims to make 20,000 deliveries every day as of now, and plans to grow that to 100,000 daily by year end. The company says that the average ticket size is Rs 1,700- 2,000, accounting for Rs 3.5-4 crore daily. As of now, it employs 1,000 people.

Earlier this month, AskMe Grocery launched AskMeFresh, a perishable grocery marketplace and AskMeMeds, an online health marketplace. These are expected to go live in 3 months. The company partners with local grocery chains to deliver to its users, without keeping the inventory.

 

A Business Standard report cites Ankit Jain, co-founder of AskMe Grocery as saying that the company’s delivery costs are very low. An AdAge India report from February states that in Delhi, the company has 24 hubs which are algorithmically selected depending on the user’s locations. Each hub ties up with 4-5 kirana stores. In May last year, AskMe acquired BestatLowest, co-founded by Jain and Amit Nigam in 2013, for $10 million.

Prior to the acquisition, BestatLowest was operational in Delhi-NCR.