Hi, I’m Divyansh,
..and I occasionally write about things I’ve come across be it read or watched, mainly about the Indian + larger Asian market, fintech, economics, startups, or something completely random I was thinking about or tinkering with for the past week.
I’m a rising junior at UC Berkeley studying Economics and Operations Research. In my free time I like to read about behavioural and financial economics, what’s happening in fintech, startups in India, and the history of the globe.
I hope to engage with people who write about similar topics so if you know someone who would like to talk more, please pass this along.
Reach me at divsaksena1@gmail.com, or here’s my twitter.
Div
#KiranaTech
I recently read on a newsletter of the prospect of taking "kirana" stores online, KiranaTech if you will. It's safe to say I was instantly fascinated by the concept and ended up reading a lot more about the space.
What JioMart is doing is unprecedented. The concept of enabling customers to order groceries and other products from "kirana" or local stores using WhatsApp is a huge step towards inclusion of the largely excluded Indian consumer from online grocery as well as the advancement of such stores to get their foot in the game of online grocery delivery. The prospect of JioMart will allow kirana stores to digitally transact with customers from entire neighborhoods growing their businesses, creating employment, and even open up the avenue of partnering with larger players such as Swiggy, Dunzo, and even Zomato, who has recently dipped its feet into the business of grocery delivery amid the epidemic that is COVID19. Incidentally, I couldn’t think of a better time to have launched such a service than now- when the country is on national lockdown with no confirmed end date on record.
They need to see the loaf of bread, feel the oranges.
With atleast 15 lakh kirana stores in India, that's not only a massive reach but also an immense amount of real estate effectively under JioMart's control. The case for JioMart is strengthened by the average Indian consumers psychology, a cautious approach with heavy emphasis on trusting the supplier. The Indian consumer has to see that loaf of bread, has to feel the oranges that he/she is buying; this is why kirana stores are still in business. They trust the kirana store as they don't view them as a large corporate but everyday businessmen whose earnings from the store run their daily life. Consumers will also be less intimidated because they are not only familiar with, rather fluent in, using WhatsApp but also can place their trust in the local kirana storefront. This begs the question: is targeting the average Indian consumer through such digital interfaces for kirana stores a large enough market with high enough barriers to entry that prevents BigBasket, Grofers, and others from entering? I think the trust factor and prices act as a big enough competitive moat to prevent them from encroaching into kirana deliveries but we'll have to see how this plays out in the next couple of months.
But this begs the larger question: can the Jio platform enable other fintech platforms to now target the average Indian consumer as opposed to those in more affluent neighbourhoods? Is the state of Indian fintech sufficiently advanced that they adapt it to people who haven't been served as yet?
That’s it for now. I’ll definitely tackle those last few questions in a later post.
In the meantime, tell your friends!