Ibibo's location-based mobile marketplace Tradus.com pivots to grocery-only marketplace

Tradus.com, a location-based mobile marketplace from the house of ibibo Group has pivoted to become a grocery-only store.

Presently, the site is offering products in nine categories including grocery & food, home provision & breakfast, dairy, poultry & frozen, sweet & confectioneries, groceries & staples, fruits & vegetables, dry fruits, and beverages in cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore.

We've contacted the firm for more information and will update the story as soon as we receive the same.

Tradus had first added the groceries vertical to its site about four months ago, with groceries sourced from local sellers in Delhi. At the time, users could purchase various groceries including dal, rice, sugar, tea, and dry fruits, via the company's mobile apps on the Android, iOS and Windows platforms.

The company enables local real-world retailers and sellers to transact with buyers in the same location and offers same-day delivery to local buyers. According to the firm, launching groceries on the platform will further drive hyper local liquidity and relevance.

Earlier, the site was selling various products including gadgets and hand-crafted jewellery. The site also allowed users to list products for free and charged a commission (based on the type of item) for products sold through it.

Tradus had earlier bought another Naspers-backed company BuyThePrice.com whose catalogue was also available on the site. However, with horizontal players like Amazon planning to invest $2 billion in its India operations; Flipkart raising $1 billion; and eBay-backed Snapdeal being en-route to raise another round, it could be difficult for smaller players to sustain in the segment.

Interestingly, both Flipkart and Tradus are backed by Naspers, a South Africa-based multinational group of media and e-commerce platforms, listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. Tradus is part of the ibibo Group, which operates a portfolio of internet businesses including travel site Goibibo.com, payments company Payu.in and auto classifieds site Gaadi.com, among others. The group was founded by Ashish Kashyap in 2007 and its key investors include Naspers and China's Tencent.

Other online grocery stores

In the groceries vertical, Tradus will compete with Bangalore-based online grocery store BigBasket.com, which is looking to expand operations to the Delhi-NCR region. Besides Bangalore, BigBasket already has operations in Mumbai and Hyderabad, and claims to have over 10,000 products and 1,000 brands in its grocery list. The company recently raised $3 million in a bridge round of funding from a Singapore-based investor.

The other funded players in the space includes Greencart.in which has raised $1.5 million in angel funding from Techno Group; LocalBanya which had raised an undisclosed amount in Series A funding; and Ekstop which had raised an investment from Unilazer Ventures.