Ready-to-eat food maker MTR Foods is planning to start its e-commerce portal soon. It is expected to open its online store by the third quarter of the current fiscal year.
“We have realised that online sales is the new way to give exposure to our products. Most of the current e-commerce use discount model, but we are not going e-way for discounts. We want to make our products available to all customers who are looking for it,” said Sanjay Sharma, Chief Executive Officer, MTR Foods Ltd.
“We have around 300 products of which only a few are sold through retail outlets. Presently, all our products are available only in our own ‘Namma MTR’ stores, which has sales of around Rs.14 lakh a month. It is technically difficult to expand this to all parts, but online will help us to take all products to more customers,” he added.
MTR has partnered with a third-party developer to build the portal and has invested around Rs.50 lakh for the project. However, further details and plans of the same have not been finalised.
In the initial stage, MTR will launch the e-service in Bengaluru and may use its existing network for the delivery.
Already, MTR products are available at e-commerce portals such as Bigbasket.com, and LocalBanya.com. According to the company, through Bigbasket.com alone it sells products worth Rs.8 lakh a month.
Recently, FMCG major Hindustan Unilever (HUL) launched its first e-commerce initiative Humarashop.com in Mumbai.
MTR, which was acquired by Norwegian food giant Orkla in 2007, said it clocked a revenue of around Rs.600 crore out of which 50 per cent came from Karnataka.
Apart from, going online way, MTR was also planning to launch 8-10 new products every year.
