[Portfolio News] The New Decade of Digital Distribution for FMCG Brands

Ripplr is a Zephyr Peacock portfolio company that is a provider of tech-enabled logistics services and distributor of retail consumer products. Ripplr’s founders, Abhishek V. Neheru and Santosh Dabke, comment on how COVID-19 has ushered in a new era of digital distribution for FMCG brands.

Click here to read the full article on “The Financial Express”

Below is an excerpt from the post that first appeared on The Financial Express on 13 February 2022:

As India battles to overcome the third wave of COVID-19, it is important to introspect the learnings of the last two years (2020 & 2021) which have changed the rules of Indian FMCG Distribution in multiple ways.

Firstly, COVID-19 taught us to be ready for a world of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA). COVID-19 came as a sudden nasty surprise to most businesses having physical presence. The second Delta wave and the third Omicron wave have kept us on tenterhooks, guessing over the future. Historically, humans have been known to adapt best to the environment around them and the transformation that they have made in the last two years has been phenomenal. Consumers who used to spend sizable amount of their time, energy and money on physical shopping suddenly shifted gear to the new Aladdin’s genie of Online Shopping. However, this change of consumer buying behaviour made a very big dent on the physical world, impacting the economy across sectors, including the biggest and largest of the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) ecosystem.

According to India Brand Equity Foundation, it is estimated that the current Indian FMCG market size (excluding groceries) is approximately $110 billion and is likely to cross $220 billion by 2025. The FMCG landscape is broadly divided into 2 major categories — Offline (General & Modern Trade) & Online (platforms like Amazon, Big Basket, Flipkart, etc). Indian FMCG market is the fastest-growing market across the globe and is hence, attracting giants to invest dollops of money in the hope of cornering the lion’s share of the market.

Click here to read the full article on “The Financial Express”