A Great Revenue Model of Online Grocery Delivery Startup Bigbasket How to Raise Their Funds

Understanding the online grocery delivery revenue model is essential for any entrepreneur looking to build the next BigBasket. In this post, we break down exactly how BigBasket, India’s largest online grocery platform generates revenue, what makes its business model profitable, and what lessons startup founders can apply when building a similar grocery delivery app.

Tata Digital Acquisition and BigBasket’s Current Standing

One of the most pivotal chapters in BigBasket’s journey came in May 2021, when Tata Digital acquired a 64% majority stake in the company, valuing it at approximately $1.85 billion. This acquisition brought BigBasket under the umbrella of one of India’s most trusted conglomerates, giving it access to deeper capital reserves, logistics infrastructure, and cross-platform synergies with Tata’s super-app ecosystem.

By January 2023, BigBasket received a fresh $200 million investment from Tata Digital and other investors, pushing its valuation to $3.2 billion. As of FY2024, BigBasket crossed the ₹10,000 crore (approximately $1.2 billion) revenue milestone – a significant marker for any Indian e-commerce startup. The company continues to operate at a loss (₹1,415 crore in FY24) as it invests heavily in quick commerce infrastructure and private label expansion, a common strategic trade-off for high-growth platforms.

BigBasket’s Full Revenue Model: How It Actually Makes Money

BigBasket generates revenue across several streams, not just one. Understanding the full picture is important for entrepreneurs looking to build a similar grocery delivery platform:

• Product Margins (Inventory Model): BigBasket purchases inventory directly from suppliers – FMCG companies like HUL and P&G, local farmers, and co-operative dairies and sells at a markup. Margins typically range from 2% to 25% depending on the product category.
• Private Label Revenue: This is BigBasket’s highest-margin stream. Brands like BB Royal, Fresho, HappyChef, GoodDiet, and Tasties are exclusive in-house labels. Over one-third of the company’s total revenue now comes from private label products, where margins are significantly higher than third-party brands.
• BB Daily Subscription: BB Daily is a subscription service for daily essentials like milk, bread, eggs, and fruits. Subscribers get scheduled morning deliveries with discounted pricing. This creates predictable recurring revenue and reduces last-mile delivery costs through route optimization.
• BB Now / Quick Commerce: Launched as BigBasket’s answer to Blinkit and Zepto, BB Now promises delivery in 10–30 minutes using dark stores (micro-fulfillment warehouses placed close to residential clusters). This segment is growing rapidly and commands premium delivery fees.
• In-App Advertising: FMCG brands pay for banner placements, sponsored product listings, and promotional slots inside the BigBasket app. This advertising revenue is a growing, high-margin stream requiring no additional inventory investment.
• Delivery Charges: Orders below a minimum threshold or for express delivery windows attract delivery fees, contributing directly to operational revenue.

BigBasket vs Quick Commerce Rivals: Where It Stands Today

The Indian online grocery market has grown fiercely competitive. BigBasket now competes directly with Blinkit (backed by Zomato), Zepto, and Swiggy Instamart – all of which are laser-focused on 10-minute delivery. Here’s how BigBasket differentiates itself:

• Product Range: BigBasket stocks 30,000+ SKUs versus 5,000–8,000 for most quick-commerce rivals. It wins on breadth, especially for bulk orders and specialty items.
• Private Label Strength: No competitor has matched BigBasket’s private label penetration (33%+ of revenue), which is a structural advantage for both margins and customer loyalty.
• Scheduled vs Instant: While BB Now competes on speed, BigBasket’s core model of scheduled slot delivery still serves millions of customers who prefer planning ahead rather than impulse buying.
• Tata Ecosystem: Integration with the Tata Neu super-app provides cross-platform loyalty points (NeuCoins), tying BigBasket purchases to hotel bookings, electronics, and financial services – something standalone rivals cannot replicate.

In June 2025, BigBasket further expanded its quick commerce play by piloting 10-minute food delivery in Bengaluru, partnering with Tata Starbucks and Qmin (by Indian Hotels Company), signalling its intent to move beyond groceries into the broader food delivery market.

What Entrepreneurs Can Learn from BigBasket’s Revenue Strategy

If you are building a grocery delivery app and want to follow the BigBasket playbook, here are the key revenue principles to embed from day one:

• Start with an inventory-led model for quality control, then layer marketplace listings as you scale.
• Introduce private labels as early as feasible – they are the single biggest driver of long-term profitability in grocery delivery.
• Build subscription tiers (daily or weekly essentials boxes) to create predictable revenue and reduce customer acquisition cost.
• Invest in dark store infrastructure to enable quick commerce – customers increasingly expect delivery in under 30 minutes.
• Use in-app advertising as a revenue layer once you have meaningful monthly active users – FMCG brands will pay well for targeted shelf space inside your app.

Frequently Asked Questions about BigBasket’s Revenue Model

How does BigBasket make money?
BigBasket earns through product margins on its inventory model, private label sales (its highest-margin stream), BB Daily subscriptions, quick commerce delivery fees (BB Now), and in-app brand advertising.

What is BigBasket’s revenue in FY2024?
BigBasket crossed ₹10,100 crore (approximately $1.2 billion) in revenue for FY2024, making it one of India’s largest e-grocery platforms by GMV.

Who owns BigBasket in 2025?
BigBasket is majority-owned by Tata Digital, which acquired a 64% stake in May 2021. It operates as a subsidiary within the Tata Group’s digital ecosystem.

Can I build an app like BigBasket?
Yes. Building a grocery delivery app with inventory management, real-time tracking, subscription features, and a private label module is a well-defined development scope. Deorwine has built similar platforms for clients – explore our grocery app development services to understand timelines and costs.

In India, the biggest online grocery delivery BigBasket has been transformed into daily home essentials requirements. BigBasket is a Supermarket grocery mobile app whose business model works deeper than a complete listing of products from many sellers.

BigBasket has developments under their operations or processes that not only support a unique marketplace model but also Introduce with a separate section, and daily subscription-based deliveries including to give an advantage in Delivery charges, delivery time etc.

The online grocery startup signifies aggressively in moving into engaging a number of delivering agents to service the growing demand from customers. When nation-wide lockdown was announced in March, then at that time it was critically disrupted by countless businesses due to COVID-19.

What we need To Know about Grocery App Development

But After that the on-demand grocery delivery is one of the best businesses who raised a good fund.

Indian the biggest startup of the grocery delivery BigBasket platform has raised around $60 million. BigBasket scales its business into the country to meet growing grocery demand from customers at home.

BigBasket succeeded the coveted unicorn status by an appraisal of over $1 billion when they raised $150 million under some series F round from Alibaba, UK Government-owned CDC Group and South Korea’s Mirae Asset Global in March 2019. 

BigBasket Journey

Notwithstanding intense competition with opposing giants such as Grofers, Amazon, Flipkart including local supermarkets that have digitalization, BigBasket has maintained its status as a top leader in the online grocery delivery marketplace.According to some experts, orders of BigBasket had plateaued around 150,000 orders on the daily basis above the last year leading to fundraising challenges. BigBasket serves a number of cities inside India by offering them ten thousands grocery products for customers. And all are providing in online order and delivering at the customer’s doorstep. Similarly ensuring inventories is affected.

Working Model of BugBasket

BigBasket Revenue Model Of Online Grocery Delivery – How BigBasket Makes Money

Hyper-local Delivery

1. BigBasket platform has entered more than 1800 neighborhood online grocery stores around India to deliver their order within an hour at the customer’s doorstep.  This benefit from the BigBasket platform is also used with other perishable items. That move has begun to decrease wastage and helping to reduce inventory prices as well.

Inventory-led Model

2. Growing BigBasket’s business speedily, it has moved with the inventory model for its products. The company buys many products from suppliers like HUL, P&G, farmers, and stocks them in warehouses. To generate revenue, they add some small margin on the price before selling them. Mostly profits and revenue are dependent on its private label products such as Royal Organic, Fresho, Happy Chef Gourmet, etc.,

Challenges Faced by Online Grocery Delivery Mobile App and Their Solutions

Provide Outstanding Customer Service

3. BigBasket offers exclusive discounts, on-time delivery, bundling methods, and provides support that helps them to engage customers and grow in sales. This benefits  adds-on to the revenue of the company.

And the biggest advantage is a lot of people who never used an online service are now ordering groceries online. That means companies like BigBasket are generating good traffic on their sales without splurging anything about marketing and promotions that would improve margins scale.

A lot of companies are following the BigBasket model to generate revenue and provide the best on-demand delivery service to their customers. It has thousands of products and customers who can explore unlimited as per their needs.

How Deorwine Infotech Can Help Following BigBasket

BigBasket had generated revenue from the mobile phones using online grocery delivery apps, because it is fast to access and easy to order and track the order. It would be great in the app to access the discount, Offer and coupons to apply on orders. 

As we follow the BigBasket Grocery Ordering App, we can create the same app including all the features. Deorwine Infotech has experience developing on demand mobile apps with standard and Advance features. 

Startups can create a grocery app which has basic features to order the grocery from the customer’s home. And we are here to support startups who are looking to grow their business and generate revenue. A business can have a lot of features including third-party Integration and Live GPS Tracking to make it more convenient. 

We have a readymade grocery order mobile app which has a lot of features to start your grocery business, it can convert your business from store to an online presence. 

We at Deorwine Infotech, provide both customized and readymade solutions to develop an on-demand grocery ordering mobile app that would be an amazing mobile app to start your business in easy and cost-effective solutions.

We are just here to understand your idea about your grocery business startup. Let’s follow the BigBasket and make our business more convenient. 

Email: sales@deorwine.com | Call/WA: +919116115717

Conclusion

BigBasket is a largest platform who serves their service PAN India with speed service. For every startup, BigBasket is an idol who can guide new business and help to achieve our market goals. 

Choose the best On-demand grocery delivery mobile app development company and create your own platform for your store that will help to get a customer and make a place in the competitive market.

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