AskMe.com, a local service engine has acquired online grocery marketplace BestAtLowest.com, further expanding the portfolio of its business areas.
As per the deal, the founders of BestAtLowest.com, Ankit Jain and Amit Nigam and their team will work with the team of AskMe to integrate their portal into AskMe.com’s upcoming new portal Askmegroceries.com. The financial details of the deal have been kept under the sheets but is estimated to be worth around $10 million.
The new portal is expected to launch later this year. BestAtLowest, a Delhi-based online grocery marketplace start-up was founded in 2013 by Ankit Jain and Amit Nigam. It has partnered with many retailer and supermarket stores for supplies. It has more than 7,000 products across various categories. It claims to provide free delivery of products within 4-6 hours.
Manav Sethi, CEO of AskMe Group, said,
Our aim has always been to be the one app for all consumers needs across merchants, deals, classified and commerce. This acquisition is reaffirmation of our commitment to our consumers. With 25,000 SKUs and 10,000 orders a month by July 2015, we are confident that Askme Grocery will assume pan India presence by exit FY 2015-16.
AskMe.com, is a digital, consumer-centric, knowledge power house that connects millions of Indian users with hyper-local information every day while making local business discoverable through targeted advertising program.
Apparently, online grocery business already witnesses a stiff competition among players like Big Basket, Localbanya, PepperTap, ZopNow, Grofers, etc. Big players like Snapdeal and Amazon have also been making attempts to tap into this business area. Also, Tata Group recently entered the market with My247Market.com. With Askme.com stepping into the battle field with its newest acquisition will eventually make the battle a cut-throat one.
As the online grocery business forecasts a promising future, Flipkart is also eying to enter online grocery market by the end of second half of this year. India is also the 6th largest online grocery market in the world. As of now, only 1% of groceries are purchased online in India.
