KISAN KIRANA |DIRECT FROM THE ENVIRONMENT | NITIE Alums

KISAN KIRANA : DIRECT FROM THE ENVIRONMENT

 

Founded in 2015 by Tanutejas Saraswat, Sumit Ghorawat, and Deepak Dhanotiya, Indore-based ShopKirana was one of the early players to connect retailers and brands/factories directly using a mobile app. It helps retailers with generating better sales and keeping less inventory by buying in real time, and by keeping track of the data on their mobile phone.

Kisan Kirana started from its humble beginning in Indore and flourished into a major staple brand In India. The journey started in 2018 with a quest to empower millions of farmers and consumers. Kisan Kirana has revolutionized the agro-based industry within a very short span. They have created a smooth supply chain where the farmers are linked directly to consumers. This helps in eradicating middle man and provides quality products to consumers.
The portfolio boosts a strong platform of staple consisting of cereals, rice, dry fruits, poha, sabudana, instant mix, spices and pulses. Kisan Kirana promises assured quality and healthy products to the masses at a value unmatched by anyone in the market.
Their core values of integrity and continuous improvement makes us a prestigious name in Fast Moving Consumer Industry. We also take pride in our strong supply chain partners and consumers who have pushed us to do better.

With a zero-inventory model, ShopKirana presents itself as a purchasing company and multi-brand distributor for retailers. The demand they get from retailers are sent to the brands, which they deliver to ShopKirana’s warehouse in 48 hours (they have one warehouse in each city they are present in). And ShopKirana delivers it to the retailer the same day, mostly in three to four hours. The company claims it has generated Rs 150 crore in revenue since 2015. Tanutejas says the company’s revenue has grown 10x in the last six months, and they are operationally profitable.

Filling a gap 

According to Anarock Retail consultancy, the offline retail market in India will be worth $1.3 trillion by 2020. India is the sixth largest grocery market in the world, and only five to eight percent of grocery stores are organised. Titans like Walmart and startups like Udaan, Bizom, ShopX, Gramfactory, and Smerkato are all working in the B2B space, but under different business models. Unlike the B2C business model, B2B ones have unique traits. 

For instance, discounts won’t help much in user acquisition. “We have to be reliable and comfortable for the customer, and we guarantee 10 percent market share to the brands. At present, we have 300 brands and 1,200 products. We will expand to all Tier II cities in 18-24 months, and then may consider Tier I cities,” says Tanutejas. 

He explains that brands have two advantages here – the middlemen/distributors are eliminated, and there is no need to give discounts. Even during flash sales, the company offers only loyalty points. “Top retailers buy from us more than 40 times in a month. We have got even Rs 3 lakh to Rs 4 lakh in a single order. The biggest single order we received was for Rs 4 lakh, but it came on a normal day, and not during flash sales,” he adds. 

ShopKirana is also using technology such as data science to predict customer demand and stock replenishment for its customers. “We can help launch a local brand overnight, and take it to the national level in a few days,” Tanutejas says. The startup provides mostly FMCG and grocery items except oil, flour, sugar, etc. due to less margins. (For other items, it gets eight-10 percent margin). 

Its private brand, called ‘Kisan Kirana’, connects farmers directly to kirana stores. Tanutejas claims it enables farmers to get more margins and better access to retail stores. Kiranas generally don’t have a standard distribution channel to buy these products. ShopKirana’s brand, he says, benefits farmers to earn more, and helps kirana stores to procure on a single platform. And for the retailers, the B2B ecommerce company has launched an exceptional programme. Tanutejas says, “Usually, loyalty programmes come with deadlines, and is redeemable in your orders. But we wanted to empower the retailers who dream of buying a refrigerator, TV, chairs, etc. So, we built a programme in which the retailers on our platform can accumulate points with each order, and use the points to buy non-FMCG white goods. It’s like a B2C function." These points cannot be redeemed otherwise. Brands on their platform are also competing to give more points, as this may motivate the retailers to buy more from them, which will help their unit economics. These loyalty points were given during the flash sale too. Discounts may not rule ecommerce forever, but customer loyalty sure will!