If you have ever been to India, you would have surely come across a kirana store — the ubiquitous mom-and-pop shops selling everything from groceries to household items and personal care products. India has around 13 million of them, contributing to over 90% of its estimated $600-billion grocery industry, which has seen the likes of Amazon.com and Reliance Industries slugging it out for a bigger share.
In recent years, the popularity of these stores led to the emergence of a host of startups seeking to provide them with tech support to ensure timely deliveries and payments, trends in heat maps, retail markets, and other meaningful insights for high average order value, retention, and digital reach, tracking transactions, payment facilities, and analytics.