DMart Ready cuts its market footprint as Indian retailers reset e-commerce economics
Avenue Supermarts’ DMart Ready has reduced its footprint from 24 markets to 11 cities while approving up to ₹500 crore for online grocery. Rising losses, discounting pressure and service complaints are pushing retailers toward more disciplined omnichannel models.
What happened
Avenue Supermarts (DMart Ready) · Indian retailers are reassessing e-commerce economics as complaints, discounting and losses rise. DMart Ready exited eight
Key facts
- Trent consumer complaints rose 35% year-on-year to more than 300,000 in FY26
- V-Mart Retail complaints increased 14% to more than 130,000
- Titan complaints increased 9% to more than 130,000
- DMart Ready reduced its footprint from 24 markets to 11 cities
- Croma found 70-80% of consumers research prices online before buying in stores
- E-commerce sales share at large listed retailers grew no more than 1-2 percentage points over four to five years
- Avenue Supermarts approved up to ₹500 crore investment in online grocery
- DMart Ready net losses rose 24% year-on-year to ₹306 crore
Why this matters
DMart Ready’s reset may create partnership or acquisition openings in last-mile logistics, grocery technology and regional delivery networks as retailers favor focused omnichannel capabilities over broad standalone expansion.
What to watch
- Quarterly DMart Ready loss trajectory, especially whether losses stop growing faster than revenue.
- Order frequency, average basket value, delivery cost per order, and repeat-customer metrics in the remaining 11 cities.
- Evidence that the ₹500 crore investment is allocated to expansion versus technology, supply chain, and service recovery.
- Changes in quick-commerce discount intensity, free-delivery thresholds, and dark-store expansion in DMart’s operating cities.
- DMart store additions and whether new stores are explicitly integrated into online fulfillment.
- Customer complaint trends around substitutions, stock availability, delivery times, and refunds.
- Prioritize profitable clusters around existing DMart store density and exit low-order-density service zones.
- Deploy the approved online grocery capital toward fulfillment automation, inventory accuracy, delivery-slot reliability, and customer-service fixes rather than broad geographic rollout.
- Increase online attachment of high-margin private labels, staples subscriptions, and larger scheduled baskets to offset delivery costs.
- Test hybrid fulfillment models including pickup points, store-assisted picking, and tighter minimum-order thresholds.
- Use reduced market coverage to renegotiate last-mile logistics contracts and establish city-level contribution-margin targets.