[pawarsw]

I have good experience with D mart. Yes they are crowded but that is one important indication that customers are happy with them. I am buying groceries from Dmart from last 5 years at least and I must say they are always well priced.
few advantages
1. There prime focus to provide quality in all type of grains and regular grocery items.
2. Its very easy to find discounted price, they paste D mart price along near MRP.
3. No complex discount ideas like other places like big bazaar.
4. Lots of sell so every item there is fresh. I never seen any expired item.

[jd10ent]

Over the years I've experienced shopping at Spencers, Day-to-Day, Big Bazaar, Vishal Megamart, Reliance Fresh & Mart, online apps like Grofers, BigBasket, etc. but I've stuck with DMart for the maximum time since I started some 3-4 years back.
I always avoid weekends & evenings, making sure I shop on weekdays between 11 AM to 3 PM. Hence, crowds and parking has never been a problem. However, since I work US business hours, for me it's easy. May not be an option for all.
Their stuff is of reasonably good quality with great discounts, even on branded food items. Their staff is courteous and more importantly, fairly knowledgeable, which I found in great contrast to the workers in Reliance.
Their apparel section is of lower quality and best avoided apart from inner-wear or casual items. Same for footwear.
I like the store because it has almost everything that one would want / need, ensuring you don't need to make trips to multiple shops.
And yes, their stock valuations are sky-high. A lot, I think, due to sentiment rather than outright performance.

[rulerofsun]

DMart is the best supermarket for the middle class. Discounts are good at minimum of 5% and popular brands get much more. The grocery section is great and the Premia (DMarts own brand is good quality. No wonder its a hit.

Pros.

• Good Discounts and good variety of branded and loose grocery
• Fantastic discounts during festivals
• Quick checkout most of the times as there are more than enough aisles
• All aisles have packers during peak period.
• Great choice of clothing and they have their own brands too which are quite good.
• Easy returns. They give back cash and not coupons.

Cons:

• No premium brands available so if you are looking at that Gouda cheese look somewhere else
• No fresh vegetables except potatoes tomatoes and onions. (Only one branch in Navi Mumbai and Thane have prepacked vegetables)
• Most of the non grocery items specially gifting and decorative items are sourced from China.
• Many of the hosiery and toiletry fabric products are made specifically for them and may have a different ply ration compared to buying from a flagship store.
• If paying by card and then returned then there will be a deduction of transaction charges.
• parking at most stores is miserable.
• Open goods like sugar, pulses and grains can be unhygienic as people put their hands in it and some times the goods get mixed.

Best store are 1. Mulund. 2. Dombivili.

Visit these two for the best of DMart.

[rakesh_r]

D-Mart means purely discount, discount and discount, period. Amongst most of the Dmarts, I have been to, the best one with super spacious parking lot is the one at Wai, en route to Mahabaleshwar.
I mostly visit the Kalyani Nagar, Pune Dmart for my monthly grocery purchase, In by 8am and out by 10 am, no rush and absolutely stress free.
I do visit the Wai Dmart when I and the wife go for a drive to lower Mapro to have some sandwiches.

[condor]

D-Mart has a good spread of items, and some good discounts. Though I find the discounts have reduced.
They have been picking up places inside the city too.


Cons -

the crowd, and then the parking when it gets crowded.
Food benefit cards not accepted yet.

[tchsvy]

I used to be a regular until 2017, then on one fine day my friend told me to note all the prices mentioned on the racks and check the same at the time of billing, as per him the billing prices were different to what they advertise on the racks. And sure enough, out of atound 10 items I picked on that day one item was billed at full MRP. And since then I've heard few more people complaining the same thing.

Now, recently went to Spencers and out of 4 items picked on that day, one item was billed at MRP rather than the offer price mentioned on the rack, I took the cashier to the rack and questioned him whether it was a regular practice, he sheepishly smiled and told me he will update the pricing info. I told him I will be calling legal metrology next time they did something like this, and he just told me they will not repeat this.

From 'my' experiences, it's always a good practice to prepare a list of items that we need to buy from D-Mart or any other such store, for that matter, and note the prices mentioned on the racks and check the same at the time of billing. This way, we won't buy unnecessary items and they won't cheat us with fake discounts.

[Simhi]

Originally Posted by rakesh_r

I mostly visit the Kalyani Nagar, Pune Dmart for my monthly grocery purchase, In by 8am and out by 10 am, no rush and absolutely stress free.

That's exactly what we do. We also visit Kalyani Nagar, Pune DMart around 8am. No parking issues, less crowd, no delays in billing. DMart gives good discounts. We have compared the prices even with Amazon Pantry.

Coming to their stock, Avenue Supermarts Ltd, investors have reposed their faith based on the background of the founders - the Damanis - who are astute investors in the equity market. They are conservative in their approach and take calculated risk which is evident from their slow expansion of stores to different cities. Their online business is also, I think, currently limited to Mumbai.

[laser2707]

Before I moved to Chennai in 2018, I lived in Mumbai for close to 7 years. We did all our grocery shopping at D Mart, Sanpada which was close to my Vashi residence. Usually, Saturday mornings 9 AM was when we would enter & be out by 10 AM well before the rush started.

On the odd days when we reached late, checking out used to be a nightmare. The Sanpada store is small in size & the cash counters get very crowded.

We also learned to avoid the trap of "Discount Pricing". Buy in bulk to avail discount leading to excess inventory at home (to get a better price buy 4 Shampoo Bottles at once). A lot of unnecessary things tend to get bought this way. However, for this the principle of "Caveat Emptor" applies. As a consumer, you have to exercise discipline.

To sum up, I think DMart has a good business model & I have never found a reason to complain about any of the stuff I bought there. I have had bad experiences with Big Bazar. I hate the way they operate on the premise that all of us are shoplifters and the security guys are there to prevent it.

DMart never tried to shove a loyalty program down my throat. They just offer discounts upfront. Zero BS, fair price & good service is what I like about them. I wish more DMart's or clones came up all across the country. I would really like them to give Amazon with its predatory practices a run for their money.

[turbospooler]

I shop at the Baner outlet in Pune.
It opens at 10 AM and if you go at that time on weekends, I get a parking space for a car easily.
I buy ghee, vrat/upwas chips, bakarwadi (yes, Chitale bakarwadi is stocked here and at a discount), biscuits.
Rest all, I buy from Amazon Pantry (like household cleaners, laundry detergent, cooking oil etc.).

Mumbai D-Marts open at 8 AM and I would prefer if the ones in Pune also opened at that time.

Regarding the Stock, I see it is a bubble as there is nothing innovative which these type of chains can do. They have innovated delivery close to your place when ordering online or even home-delivery in Mumbai. Rest, the more number of outlets they open, the higher the growth. Margins won't improve suddenly. So it is a game of how many stores D-Mart plans to open in a year and how many stay open due to market conditions.

[H Karter]

Dmart has been our default choice for groceries for last 9 years.

Once I met the Dmart Manager here at Ratnagiri.
He told that only 20% of profit margin from the MRP is retained and rest is given out as discount!

In addition to this they never advertise Dmart anywhere, which helps greatly in keeping operating costs minimal.

To beat the crowd (In Panvel) I employ a simple technique:
We go shopping as a couple if we are in dire need of groceries during peak hours of crowd - one gets in the queue for billing and other continues shopping. That way we get the task completed within 30-45 mins.

[dipdawiz]

Tried couple of times here in Bangalore (two D-Marts within 5 km in Electronic City), but do not prefer D-Mart at all personally, and have not been there in years now. Couple of times ran a comparison between bulk shopping from D-Mart vs Metro cash&carry vs go as you need shopping from Spar/More/Big basket. Frankly, the saving they (D-Mart/Metro) have is low and does not justifies the hassle, also quality issues are there in significant number of items (specially D-Mart).

Three points I found mainly about D-Mart
1. High crowd
2. Low quality non-food items
3. Inconsistent stock of items (you may not get same brand/item in your next visit)

Prefer Spar and More Megastore for quality and variety. For grocery I extensively use Big basket, almost all BB Royal brand items are of high quality, brand and item variety is also vast enough; and of course use it for convenience. Moreover 10 - 20% off at beginning of every month, also some cashback are always there through out the month, these are on and over small discount that they give on MRP. It saves me from driving in Bangalore Traffic and potholes.

[VaahanYogi]

Have been a regular customer of D-Mart since 2014. Quality and price are unmatchableby other supermarkets such as Big Bazaar, Spar, Vishal Mega Mart. Off late, even the other supermarkets have started offering similar offers. Good to visit during off peak hours. Billing on weekends looks like a chaos

[VaahanYogi]

Originally Posted by alpha1

Most of the D-Marts that I have seen are typically outside the prime localities, mostly on the municipal borders and therefore have already reduced a significant portion of their operating costs (rent).
And as Libranof1987 quotes, the land is owned by D-Mart so that makes it a real estate company ;-)

Most D-Marts, most of the times have great discounts and schemes running and have a vast portfolio of fast moving products (food and consumer goods).

Never really ventured into their footwear and apparel. From the cursory glance it appears to be cost effective stuff which is not too high quality but gets the job done.

Not all D-Marts are owned. The one in Jayanagar, Bangalore, is a rented/leased one. Footwear and apparel are just worth the price.

[naveenroy]

Reminds me of Costco. The amount of stuff we used to buy when I just moved here. Finally stopped going altogether.

Also, might help some of you - never go shopping on an empty stomach. I figured out that I buy way too much stuff when I am hungry LOL

[GladRagu]

We used to go to many super/hyper markets. It was all good initially, but quickly realised that we spend a lot of time on road, moving around aisles sans any purpose and hence buying items we don't need, long billing queue and all associated inconveniences.

All the items we require gets home delivered by Amazon, Bigbasket, Myntra, firstcry, hopscotch, freshtohome, dunzo and local super markets. Ordering time consumes very few mins and any issues with products gets replaced/refunded sans any hassle. Discounts are good and not to mention the hassles we avoid as explained initially. When time permits, sourcing the greens from street vendors.

Now we get more personal time and we utilise that happily/productively. Taking the car out only for hospital, school and touring. Touring also happens mostly on weekdays, non peak hours to avoid wasting time on tolls, queues.

For us, personal/family time is more important and yes, I've shopped in Dmart as well.