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[thecasecraft]

How DMart quietly became India’s ₹58,000 Cr retail giant??

In a world of flashy marketing and hyper-growth startups, DMart has quietly built one of India’s most successful retail empires — and it did it the old-school way. 🏬

Founded in 2002 by stock market investor Radhakishan Damani, also known as the retail king, DMart has grown from a single store in Mumbai to 415 stores across India by 2025.

Here’s how:

👉 Own the stores. Unlike most retail chains, DMart buys its own properties instead of renting. This keeps overheads low and protects margins.

👉 Everyday Low Prices (EDLP). DMart doesn’t do sales, gimmicks, or constant promotions. It simply offers lower prices — all the time — which keeps customers coming back.

👉 Lean operations. Minimal staff, simple store layouts, high inventory turnover — it’s all about efficiency.

👉 Deep customer trust. DMart delivers on value and builds loyalty — quietly but powerfully.

The Numbers (FY25): 🏬 415 stores 💸 ₹57,790 crore revenue 📊 EBITDA margin ~7.9% ⚡️ Debt/Equity 0.02x 📈 ROE ~17%

Challenges: 🛒 Competing with q-commerce (Blinkit, Zepto) 💻 Slow but steady rollout of DMart Ready (e-commerce) 📍 Limited presence in North & East India

4 Lessons from DMart’s Rise: 1️⃣ Stick to your strengths 2️⃣ Grow slow, grow strong 3️⃣ Focus on operational excellence 4️⃣ Build customer trust — and protect it

💭 In a noisy world of VC-fueled startups, DMart proves that discipline, focus, and patience can still win the retail game.

Would you shop at DMart? Or do you prefer the speed of quick commerce? 🛒

[thecasecraft]

🍴 The Zomato Story: From Craves to Clicks 🛵

📍 "What if you could click on any menu in the city?" It all started with two ravenous techies in Gurgaon in 2008.

✨ From Foodiebay to Zomato   Zomato began as Foodiebay, a modest website for uploading restaurant menus, before it evolved into the well-known brand that we all know today. Seeing people swarming around printed menus at their workplace, founders Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah decided to go digital.

🧭 2008–2014: In expansion mode By 2010, Foodiebay had evolved into Zomato—global, memorable, and catchy. Due to the universality of food, the app swiftly expanded throughout Indian cities before crossing international borders to the UAE, UK, and South Africa.

💡 Zomato has developed into a comprehensive experience that goes beyond menus:

Reviews of restaurants 📝

Delivery of food 🚴

Reservations for tables 📆

Contactless dining 🌐

Cloud kitchens and hyperlocal groceries 🛒

🔥 Wild, Weird, and Witty: The Brand Voice They created a feeling rather than merely an app. Their advertising? Unfiltered. Sassy. worthy of a meme. They apologized like a brand with a conscience, responded like a savage, and tweeted like your brave best friend.

Going Public Zomato proved to the world that food + tech + Desi hustle = gold when it became the first unicorn in India to list on the stock exchange in July 2021.

📚 What Can Zomato Teach Startups?

1. Address Actual Issues Zomato began as a minor annoyance—not being able to locate menus—rather than as a grand tech dream. Examine your surroundings. Fix the problem. Later, scale.

2. Develop a Powerful Voice Your body is your product. Your soul is your brand voice. Make it brave, sincere, and human.

3. Information Is Power Zomato improved customer service, delivery time, and recommendations by using user behavior data. Utilize data as if it were your sixth sense.

4. Grow Wisely, Not Quickly City by city, feature by feature, they concentrated. Instead of chasing everything at once, develop like a spiral rather than spaghetti.

5. Stay Human Zomato never came across as robotic, even in their humorous tweets and Diwali apology ads. Being genuine stands out in a tech world.

6. Keep Evolving Menus, delivery, groceries, and IPO were the steps they took. Avoid becoming emotionally invested in your initial concept; instead, adjust as if your life depended on it, which it does.

Zomato is more than just a startup. It's a recipe

🧠 Combine a minor issue

👨‍🍳 Be creative ♡️ Use timing to stir

💬 Use humour as a garnish

🚀 Serve consistently.

Shared by CaseCraft – where we break down businesses one story at a time. Because every startup has a strategy worth decoding.