Surviving the Q-commerce quake: Inside B2B e-commerce startups’ fight to keep kiranas relevant

For Jigeesh, who runs a kirana store in Bengaluru’s upmarket suburb of Indiranagar, business has been on the wane for the past few years. “Compared to pre-pandemic times, business is down by at least 15%,” he says.

Jigeesh says that the rise of quick-commerce platforms such as Swiggy Instamart, Blinkit, BigBasket, and Zepto has taken a significant toll on his business. "We still deliver to a few long-term customers, but competing with these platforms isn’t easy. Some stores nearby are even talking about building their own apps,” he tells The CapTable.

Jigeesh’s shop, Brothers Stores, should have been among the kirana stores better positioned to deal with quick-commerce’s meteoric ascent. The shop carries the branding of J24, a program introduced by Jumbotail, one among a number of B2B e-commerce companies that sought to build their fortune by taking India’s unorganised grocery sector online. Indeed, the J24 program not only sought to supply stores with all their inventory needs but also to list them on the likes of delivery platform Dunzo to increase their reach.

J24, however, at least in Jigeesh’s case, hasn’t amounted to much. “I run Brothers Stores—J24 is just a board they put up,” Jigeesh explains. “They no longer handle online orders. I just buy products from them like I would from any other wholesaler.”