Quick commerce leaves kiranas scrambling. Can Kiko Live bridge the gap?

uick commerce is reshaping the grocery game with its lightning-fast deliveries, leaving traditional neighborhood kirana stores scrambling to keep up.A survey by Datum Intelligence shows that more than 82% of shoppers buy from their kirana. at least 25% shifted to fast shopping, while 5% of respondents stopped buying from Kirana stores altogether.

This shift has created a sense of urgency among kirana owners who are witnessing a decline in overall sales.Kiko Live, a SaaS platform for neighborhood stores, found that kiranas face three key challenges: pricing competition from e-commerce platforms, faster shipping speeds offered by competitors and delays in product availability.

Speaking Business todayAlok Chawla, co-founder of Kiko Live, explained how consumer behavior around grocery shopping has undergone a significant transformation over the past two years.

“In the past, grocery shopping meant walking to a store or visiting a mandi. Although there were initiatives to digitize kiranas, they did not take off. However, with the entry of big players in the market, consumer behavior has changed and kirana owners are now experiencing digitisation. an urgent need,” Chawla said.

There are 13 million kirana stores in India, generating more than $800 billion in annual revenue.However, they lack a digital footprint, making it difficult for them to compete with organized retail and e-commerce platforms.

“Retailers are looking for solutions that can provide a fast shopping-like experience to their customers,” added Chawla.

Kiko Live aims to bridge the gap for kirana owners who want to adapt to the changing business landscape.At its core, the platform emphasizes the importance of product cataloging to enable online ordering.

The onboarding process begins with a physical visit to the store where KYC details are collected and the retailer is guided to complete a GSC registration.Currently, Kiko Live prioritizes retailers who maintain digital inventory through point-of-sale (POS) systems.

“With digital inventory, retailers record the products they sell in their POS systems. For example, if a retailer sells 3,000 items, their POS will already have SKUs listed. This allows us to download their inventory file, match it with our database of over 30,000 SKUs and bring their products to life instantly,” explained Chawla.

In contrast, smaller kirana stores without digital systems require manual checking and cataloging of their inventory, which is a time-consuming process.As a small company, Kiko Live takes a top-down approach, starting with digital-enabled retailers and eventually moving on to smaller ones.

According to Tracxn, Kiko Live has raised around $4 million in multiple seed rounds to date with revenue of Rs 21.8 lakh and losses of over Rs 2 crore.

Kiko Live uses the Open Network of Digital Commerce (ONDC) platform for last-mile delivery, ensuring that groceries reach customers within minutes.Since its launch last year, the platform has facilitated over five lakh orders and is currently operational in Delhi /NCR.Plans are underway to expand to Bengaluru within the next month.

Chawla believes the platform’s focus on digitally equipped kiranas ensures scalability and efficiency, even as it sets its sights on smaller retailers in the future.

Despite the challenges, the survey highlighted optimism among kirana store owners, with a significant 84% of respondents already adopting technology and digital solutions to some extent. Many believe that the shift to online and fast-paced commerce platforms will help businesses grow in the next 1-2 years during.

However, there remain concerns about the survival of kiranas that are unable to adapt to evolving market trends.As fast-paced commerce continues to expand its footprint, the urgency to digitize kiranas has never been greater.