Groceries At Your Door: Reign Of Kitchen Kings

Why online grocery shopping is thriving.

- Aanchal Bansal

For 34-year-old Harneet Sodhi, an infotech professional living with her husband in an upscale high-rise along Golf Course Road in Gurgaon, ‘doing grocery’ was never any fun. The weekend chore of taking out the car and scurrying through crowded lines in the local supermarket for the week’s groceries was always done with routine rounds of bickering, frowns and procrastination. One of the pitfalls of living in the locality, as with many other such apartment complexes in Gurgaon, was the absence of a friendly neighbourhood convenience store. “But I have now started ordering online through an app on my phone,” Sodhi says, “One gets good combo deals which work out cheaper. Besides, my orders get delivered at my time and convenience.”

With over a dozen online grocery portals working within the National Capital Region, Sodhi now spends most of her grocery shopping time browsing for the best deals available. “Since there is severe competition to grab customer attention, most of them offer great discounts. Whenever I need something, I first check what deals are available, and then place my order with the one offering the best options,” she says. While the discounts range between 2 and 5 per cent, Sodhi, however, still shies away from buying fresh fruits and vegetables online, opting to stick to the custom of buying these from a local vendor. “The only hitch with online shopping is that you cannot physically