Join Ventures to launch 100 dark stores

Join Ventures, which houses D2C (direct to consumer) brands such as gifting company IGP in its portfolio, has announced 100 new dark stores across India to help its portfolio brands better service the celebration ecosystem across the country. The move will further bolster the company’s already impressive fulfilment infrastructure of 20 dark stores that three mother warehouses support.

A dark store is a large retail facility that resembles a conventional supermarket or other store but is not open to the public, housing goods used to fulfil orders placed online. The company plans to launch the 100 dark stores by the end of FY-23, making Join Ventures one of the largest and fastest-growing house of brands in the celebration ecosystem that is estimated to be over USD 200 billion in size.

Join Ventures uses its proprietary tech stack, combined with a network of strategically located dark stores, to help its portfolio brands - IGP.com and Interflora.in deliver more than five million orders annually.

Establishing new dark stores will also help Join Ventures spruce up its logistics, last-mile delivery and help the company launch new brands that can capture the growing market of special purchases in Food, Home, Fashion and Fresh categories. The company recently announced a USD 7-million investment for its new brand Masqa.

Speaking on the announcement Tarun Joshi, founder and CEO, Join Ventures, said, “The 100 new dark stores will further move the distribution process of our brands in-house for better quality control and assured timely delivery.”

“Dark stores are the future of retail, and the rapid growth in demand in the celebration landscape requires solutions for automation and fulfilment quickly. We believe that these dark stores could turn into permanent fixtures to serve customers as they help improve customer experience and provide better control on the quality of the products delivered,” Tarun added.

The dark stores at Join Ventures will be equipped with intelligent automation, and the floor space will be dedicated to inventory management and will contain tracking systems focused on order accuracy and speed of deliveries.