Are 10-Minute online Delivery Killing the Indian Corner Shop?

The Corner Shop Ramji Dharod has Manned Over Six Decades Is Now on The Brink of Closure.

The Store Mits in A Bylane in the Central Indian City of Mumbai’s Busy Shopping Precinct, and has served the Community for 75 years.

Dharod Began Coming To The Shop With His Phater When He was Just 10. These Days, He Mostly Sits Idle, Waiting for an Occasional Customer To Walk.

Behind Him, Cardboard Boxes of Unsold Biscuit Packets and Snacks Show “Stock Clearance Sale” Sign Posted on Them.

“I Wouldn’t Get a Minute to Breathe A Few Years ago, But now I rarely get Anyone coming,” Says The Septuagenarian Wryly. “They Are All Shopping online. I’ve decided to retire and down the shutters.”

As 10-Minute Online Delivers by “Quick Commerce” Apps Like Zomato, Blinkit and Zepto Pervate Urban India, Hundreds of Thousandhood of Thousandhood Stores Across Cities Have.

A Lobby Group Product Distributors Estimated That 200,000 Last October, While The Southern City of Chennai Estimated 20% Of Small Grocers and 30% Of Larger Departmental Stores Had Shut Down in The City in The Past 5 years.

Sunil Kenya Who Runs A Provision Store Right Beside Dharod’s Shop Says He’s Still Only Because His Family Owns The Shop. Those On Rent Are No Longer to Stay Afloat, Heys.

“It started Going Downhill after the Covid Lockdowns. Business Is at 50% of what We Did Before the Pandemic,” Kenya Told The BBC.

Most of His Revenue Now comes from Wholesale Customers – Hawkers Or Those Street-Side Snacks. The Retail Customer has a All But “Vanished”, Heys, Because of the Convenience of Mobile Deliveries.

Mumbai-Based Graphic Designer Monisha Sathe is Among The Millions of Urban Indians Who’ve Stopped Their Weekly Because of the Ease of Quick Commerce.

“Lugging Groceries Back Home Was A Big Pain,” Says Sathe. And Occasionally, when She Took Out Car, Navigating Narrow Market Lanes And Finding A Parking Slot Would Be A Challenge.

Sathe Says She Human Interaction She Had with the Vendors and Even The Vendors and Even The Variety Of Her, The Balance Still Tilts Online Deliveries of How Made Her Life.

A Recent Survey Consultancy PWC Shows Some 42% of Urban Consumers in India’s Big Cities Think Like Sathe, Especially Preferring Quick Delivery for Their Urgent Needs. And Those Shifts in Buying Behavior Have Led to Three Out of 10 Retailers Report on Their Business, With 5% drop in Essential Goods Sales.

But Extent Is Quick Commerce Really Hollowing Out The Indian High Street?

There’s No Doubt Trade – What Includes Grocery Stores, Corner Shops And Even Big Retail Outlets – Start Under Threat, Says Ankur Visor, A Technopak Retail Advisory. But at Least now “Quick Commerce Is Still A Three-Four City Story”, Heys. Nearly All of their Sales Come From These Cities.

Lightning Fast Deliveries Bucked The Global Trend and Became Successful In India Largely Due To A Large Concentration of People Staying in Urban Clusters.

They Are Serviced Through Low-Rent “Dark Stores” – Or Small Shops dedicated to the Delivery and Not Open to the Public – in Densely Populated Areas, Scale of Economies.

But The Precarious Nature of Demand and fragmented demographics Could make it expensive for Quick Commerce Players to Expand and Make Money Beyond The Metros, Says Mr Bisen.

There’s Little Doubt Though That These online Delivery Will Disrupt Trade In The Longer Run.

Bain and Company Expects Quick Commerce to Grow at 40% Annually Through to 2030, Driven by Expansion Across “Geographies”.

And this has made traditional retail nervous.

Trade Organizations – All India Trader, OR IDDIA Consumer Products Distributors WHITLEF THE VOICE OF INDIA’s 13m Retailers – Have Urgent and Repeated Pleas to the Government’s Against This Breakneck Expansion.

Theyy Those Companies Are Using Billions of Dollars in Venture Capital Funds Like Anti-Competitive Practices Like “Predatory Pricing” or “Deep Discounting” What Has Further Distorted The Playing Field For Mom-and-Pop Shops.

The BBC Spoke to Several Small Retailers Who Shared These Concerns. Mr Bisen Too Agreed There’s Evidence of Such Practices in The Clusters That Is Quick Commerce Companies Operate.

Swiggy, Zepto and Blinkit, Who Primarily Control This Market, Did Not Agree to Comment on The BBC’s Queries On These Allegations.

But a Source Within One Of The Quick Commerce Companies Told The BBC discounting was discounting Was Done Traers on The Platform and Not by Them.

The Source Also Loso is the Binary Narrative Of The Binary Guy “Big Guy Versus Small Guy”, Online Delivation Were Solving Real-World Challenges For Whom Going To Market Was A “Traumatic” Experience.

“Think of Women or Senior Citizens – They Don’t Want to Be Harassed Or Navigate Potholes and Traffic,” The Source Said. “Also Consider The Small Brands That Sell Platform – They Never Get Shelf Space In Physical Shops Where Only The Big Names Are Displayed. We’ve democratised The Market.”

Analysts Say, The Deals of India’s Development Of IT Development, Levels Of Income That In The End All Retail Models – Small Corner Shops, Organized Big Retailers And Quick Cohabit in The Country.

This is not a “Winner Takes All Market”, Says Mr Bisen, Giving The Example of E-Commerce What Came In India in 2010 and Was Meant to Sound The Death Knell Of Local Retailers.

Even After All These Years, Only 4% of All Shopping Is Done online in India.

But the ripples caused by Quick Commerce Should Be a Physical Retailers, Say Analysts, To Their Marketing and Integrate Technology to Use Both and Offline Channologers to Give Their Shopping Experience.

Competing with click-of-a-button Delivery Means It can no longer to be busual for the Millions of Corner Shops Who’ve existed Decades, With Little Or No Innovation.

Follow BBC News On India Instagram, Youtube, X And Facebook.