27,000 kirana shops! Flipkart to strengthen last-mile delivery

27,000 kirana shops across 700 cities!

That’s what Flipkart is coming up with to strengthen its pan-India supply chain ahead of the upcoming festive season, the Big Billion Days.

This will not only help the online firm personalise and enhance e-commerce experience for its existing 160 million consumers, but also help deepen its reach to newer areas and new consumers.

And not to mention, it will support kiranas by enhancing their income.

Currently, Flipkart is working with over 12,000 kirana stores across the country and it believes that kiranas would help the online platform improve last-mile logistics and access to 100 per cent of the pin codes.

“The nation-wide kirana onboarding started 6 months back, keeping in mind the massive scale of the upcoming festive season. This season witnesses heightened demand from customers from across the country and also grows the business of our kirana partners,” the company said.

Flipkart initiated with a customised training programme to bring onboard the kirana partners, with soft skills and the know-how to deal with customer queries or requests on the spot.

“After digital payments, the next big revolution in kirana is going to be ushered in conjunction with e-commerce. It will reposition and reinvent kirana stores as convenience stores from an e-commerce perspective while offering them a new source of revenue, making it a win-win situation for all,” said Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO, Flipkart Group.

In order to faciltate the onboarding process and their inclusion in the delivery model seamlessly, Flipkart is leveraging its in-house tech solution called the ‘Allocation Engine’. By evenly spreading the shipments across various delivery models, the Allocation Engine helps increase the efficiency of deliveries.

Before Flipkart, Myntra had launched its network of kiranas in 2017 called MENSA.