We've stepped into the digital world and there's no going back. With innovation in the digital space taking place at a rapid scale, it's a brilliant time for progress. If we take a close look at the creativity being applied by BigBasket, we'll find that they have leveraged Artificial Intelligence to scale the business exponentially.

BigBasket, an e-commerce marketplace for groceries in India, was founded in 2011 and is one of the biggest, most successful players when it comes to online supermarkets. With over 20,000 products from more than 1000 household brands, it caters to almost 10 million customers. With delivery options ranging from getting your delivery the same day, next day or in just a few hours, it has most certainly taken the market by storm.

When you're catering to 1/10th of the country, a few hurdles are inevitable. Challenges like managing voluminous orders, timely deliveries and competing with local vendors to attract and retain customers were some of the things they had to tackle. Let's delve deeper to understand how they used AI & ML to overcome these obstacles.

Locus Dispatcher

A strong logistics model needs to be a framework that understands demand, distribution and routing. And when you're dealing with perishable products, you can't afford to make any errors with the lead time. Here's where Locus.sh's 'Locus Dispatcher' came to the rescue. It's an AI and ML tool that optimises routes using a bunch of algorithms. With this tool, BigBasket was able to achieve consistency and efficiency with its deliveries. Additional benefits like transparent communication with the customer and reduced environmental impact were a bonus. In the event that an address is unclear, this tool will still be able to provide accurate geographical coordinates which helps in avoiding misrouting and delays. Locus Dispatcher also provides a precise ETA to customers after taking into account history and trends. It will compare the usual route with other routes, and notify the rider about the best route based on traffic congestions and the amount of time taken on the same route in the past. The adoption of this AI solution helped BigBasket fix the delivery crisis by streamlining the process, reducing costs, and enabling on-time and increased deliveries, thereby scaling the business and providing an excellent customer experience.

Amazon Redshift

Another smart use of ML was the adoption of Amazon Redshift as BigBasket's data warehouse. Redshift analyses buying patterns of customers to make the shopping experience more intuitive. With insight into the buyer's behaviour, Redshift is able to predict what the customer will want to buy next, and accordingly suggest that to them on the app. When customers are able to check out quickly, there's a higher chance of them being loyal to the brand. Because of Redshift, a feature called Smart Basket was included in the app - a feature that makes recommendations to customers based on their previous purchases. Smart Basket understand the shopper's needs in terms of how much they are willing to pay for a product and the quality preferred. Accordingly, it will recommend products previously purchased and new, similar products.

IoT

While delivering products to customers, it's important that the perishable and cold items like fruits, vegetables, meat, dairy products, etc. are packed correctly. At the warehouse, the cold and hot products are packed in different containers, after which the temperatures of the fresh products need to be maintained in order for them to be of the quality promised to the customer. BigBasket has leveraged IoT applications to ensure this quality. It helps understand the packaging - frozen, hot or cold by analysing the information about the product, container it's packed in, and the temperature that needs to be maintained. This helps avoid food wastage, maintain quality standards, and manage the availability of fresh products with regards to the number of customers in an area.

BB Instant

BigBasket has gloriously used AI to create smart kiosks called BB Instant. They are basically regular kiosks from over 500 locations connected through an app. Customers can visit the kiosk, scan the products through the app, and walk away with their purchase. The payment can be made through any of the convenient payment modes on the app. Through this AI-backed tool, BigBasket has already set up 1000 smart kiosks and are looking at this number becoming 3000 in the coming year. When the product is scanned and selected on the app, the system recognizes the product in the kiosk through the advanced deep learning solution and highlights where the product is located, making it easy for the customer to simply open the kiosk door and collect. If anything else is taken, the AI system will keep track and deduct the amount from the BigBasket wallet. This AI-driven innovation automatically replenishes the stock as and when it depletes.

The brand has brilliantly made use of various Cloud, AI, ML and GPS tools to ensure that the customer experience is of the highest quality, one that will bring in more customers and retain the current ones. Because of AI adoption, BigBasket has stayed ahead of the competition and enjoys a sizeable market share.