MUMBAI: Mom-and-pop shops, known locally as kirana stores, can be found all over India – on busy city streets, the tiniest of lanes in slums, and even hard-to-reach rural areas.
Among them is Mr Anil Jain, who has run his store for 35 years, meeting the grocery needs of thousands of customers in his neighbourhood."There is a lot of impact on our business from online retail, where they give free home delivery, and it doesn't matter to them whether the customer buys one item or more," he said.The online grocery shopping market is expected to continue growing, with one estimate pegging its value at US$24 billion by 2025.
Reliance also has a franchise deal with multinational United States brand 7-Eleven that looks to expand these convenience stores to 100 cities across India. Like many kirana store owners, he offers credit to his regular customers. They can also now send the shop their orders via WhatsApp and get their items delivered.
JioMart, for instance, allows customers to place orders via its platform and pick them up from their local kirana store, while Amazon has an initiative called “local shops”, which allows kirana vendors to sell through its site.