Mumbai, December 4, 2024: Kiko Live, a SaaS platform designed to provide neighborhood stores with a digital storefront and facilitate Quick Commerce, has reached a significant milestone by enabling half a million orders for kirana stores on the ONDC platform in under 11 months.
The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) is an initiative by the Government of India aimed at creating an open e-commerce network that connects shoppers, platforms, and retailers. The initiative was launched in December 2021, featuring over 570,000 sellers within its network and processing around 200,000 orders daily across various categories, with food being the most popular.
Kiko Live, which launched on the ONDC platform earlier this year, has become a leading player in enabling kiranas for quick commerce and helping them provide a digital shopping experience for their customers.
Kiko Live has empowered over 1,000 neighborhood stores in Delhi/NCR to offer digital ordering and integrated logistics for quick commerce. Some of these stores are now processing more than 100 orders a day. Additionally, Kiko Live stores in Bangalore will soon be available for quick commerce, as the onboarding process is currently in full swing.
Alok Chawla, Co-Founder, Kiko Live, said, “We have seen that customers continue to have loyalty to their neighborhood store for various reasons, including availability of fresh items, long term relations with the families and also convenience of ordering as required and settling the bills at the end of the month.”
The company has found that Kirana stores are losing business from their loyal customers who prefer home delivery orders to dark store-led quick commerce players. This shift is largely due to the lack of a digital buying interface with trackable, quick deliveries offered by kiranas.
Customers often find it inconvenient to place orders over the phone or via WhatsApp with their local stores. Consequently, even those who typically remain loyal to their neighborhood shops for in-person purchases are now turning to other online platforms for their home delivery needs.
“With this learning, we are also shortly launching a COD feature to order from your neighborhood stores, and the store can either collect payment directly through UPI, or add the amount to the customers monthly ledger or “khata” to be settled later. This will also help the store, as well as the customers to have a detailed downloadable MIS of items ordered, to avoid disputes in the monthly billed amounts,” he added.
Kiko Live has received approval to launch its own Buyer App on the ONDC platform. Customers will now be able to order from their local stores using the Kiko Live Buyer App. The app will feature a chat-based shopping experience, allowing buyers to interact with stores. It will be powered by AI, which will display a shopping list and suggest items that can be easily added to the cart for a seamless checkout process.
The company plans to launch its buyer app soon in smaller and tier 2 towns, where dark store-led quick commerce is not practical. Other quick commerce applications will also be able to integrate with our store inventory in these markets, allowing them to fulfill orders without needing to establish dark stores or rely on a limited selection of SKUs. They will be able to access a wide range of long-tail SKUs from our retailer network.
About Kiko: Kiko Live was conceived with a simple yet innovative vision – to digitize and empower local neighborhood retailers. Whether it’s kiranas, pharmacies, stationeries, or paan-wallahs, every local retailer can join their platform and leverage their app to streamline and expand their home delivery services.
Through their collaboration with ONDC as a Seller NP, Kiko sellers gain visibility across various ONDC buyer apps, such as PayTM, MyStore, and more. By enlisting as a seller on the Kiko Live platform, businesses experience a substantial increase in their online presence, leading to enhanced visibility and significant business growth. This streamlined process enables sellers to efficiently scale up and boost their revenue.
Kiko has garnered support from prominent investors, including Venture Catalysts, 9 Unicorns, Powerhouse Ventures, GSF, and SOSV, among others.
