The warehouse operators are expanding their reach in East & Northeast India, after major brands and e-commerce firms have witnessed exponential growth in demand across these regions during the hit of the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing the operators to fast track last-mile delivery in the region.

Although the Third-Party Logistics (3PL) companies have their presence in big cities such as – Kolkata, Guwahati, and Siliguri, they are planning to outreach consumers across the regions of the North East & East India.

“We are betting big on east India because of its strategic location with newly developed national highways, freight corridors, and ports with the potential to serve the entire eastern belt and neighbouring countries,” said Abhijit Verma, CEO of Avigna Group.

Avigna group is also focusing on expanding its reach in such areas. However, companies like – Quickshift, ANS commerce, and Stellar recently expressed their plans to expand their business in Northeast India.

“E-commerce activity has witnessed the greatest expansion in the north-eastern states of India. We are expecting a phenomenal rise in demand for large format warehouses in cities like Guwahati, Siliguri, and Imphal,” said Anoop Chauhan, of Allcargo Logistics.

Warehousing demand in secondary markets has escalated to 31%, as compared to 23% de-growth for primary markets in FY 2021, according to Knight Frank India.

“We are looking for strategic partnership with warehouse space aggregators for rental space and infra with our core focus on structuring and streamlining the process,” said Nakul Singh, ANS commerce.

As this market sector has been largely unorganized for decades, the possibility for growth and investment-grade warehousing also stood to be a huge task.

In the future, most activities will be driven by e-commerce third party along with Fast-Moving Consumer Good (FMCG), retail, consumer electronics, and healthcare sectors.