Aiqusec Retail and Wholesale announces India’s most disruptive offline grocery retail project, “Groceries”, with the aim to launch 100+ Kirana stores like “Groceries”-branded outlets in Bangalore city. The retail stores are envisioned to be local and look like any neighbourhood Kirana storefront backed by a corporate structure. With the planned, organized retail penetration, “Groceries” will be the first to introduce a discount model at Kirana stores.
The post-COVID-19 market has seen a trending growth in grocery retail startups. In the digital era, where venture-backed big companies fight for online grocery retail market share, bootstrapped Growceries believes “real revenue” is in the traditional offline stores. To achieve the capital-intensive project without the intervention of VCs or early-stage hedge funds, Groceries pivots into an investment aggregation model.
“Kirana stores still control 70% of the grocery revenue in India,” says NIT-W alumnus Krishna Prasad, founder and CEO of the project. “Traditional Kirana shops do not see themselves as big entities due to their small size and low GMV.” But anyone who has knowledge of the retail industry knows well that Kirana rules the industry. “My approach is consumer-focused, and I believe this project will be of national importance by decreasing the living costs of people and directly contributing to the country’s GDP,” he adds.
The planned 400-ft shops are either rented and designed or placed on a piece of empty land with a custom shipment container designed to mimic a Kirana store. Every store in Concept is equipped with e-vehicles for quick online deliveries up to 500 meters from the store. Customers can order online through Growceries’ mobile application, WhatsApp store, or simply by calling the store directly.
Currently, their investment aggregation is done through a store lease model. In just 15 days, any investor can lease a fully managed Growceries outlet for a period of 15 months, which includes 3 months of initial setup and cooling followed by a 12-month ROI period. Aiqusec is expected to purchase a large number of goods, similar to a stockist, in order for their discounting model to work. They have also announced that customers can place on-call or in-app orders and have them delivered in 5 minutes or for free, which is highly competitive in the current e-grocery market.
“AiQusec’s Groceries is a consumer-focused Kirana retail chain,” says the founding team.
While the survival of small Kirana shop owners is already a concern, Aiqusec’s Groceries is directly targeting the same. The founders argue that, from an ethical point of view, though small retailers may suffer initially, ultimately, consumers benefit more in numbers.
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