Kiranas deliver the goods for ecommerce giants like Amazon, Myntra

The friendly neighbourhood kirana store is getting increasing attention from ecommerce behemoths such as Amazon India and Myntra for handling the last leg of their deliveries.

Ecommerce companies have over the past year significantly scaled up their use of this channel for last-mile delivery, allowing them to reduce their delivery staff or engage them for more advanced tasks. Amazon engages its neighbourhood store network for onethird of its deliveries, and Myntra for about two-thirds, according to industry estimates.

Amazon’s ‘I Have Space’ (IHS) programme grew 40% year-onyear to 17,500 neighbourhood stores in 225 cities at the end of 2017, wherein it partners with local stores that will deliver products to customers within a 2-4 km radius.

Flipkart-owned Myntra has expanded its ‘Mensa Network’ to 6,200 stores in 50 cities since it was launched in April last year, and about 60% of its orders are fulfilled through it. Flipkart said its alternative delivery network, which includes Apollo pharmacy stores, handles 20-30% of its deliveries during its peak festive season sales.

“Unlike what is said about ecommerce impacting the small kirana store, this programme has helped find a new use case for them, where they can also get predictability of revenue,” said Manpreet Ratia, head of supply chain, customer experience and human resources at Myntra. “(Flipkart and Myntra) leverage each other’s capacities. We have shared our learnings from the Mensa Network with Flipkart.” The fashion retailer’s neighbourhood store partners earn `15,000 a month on an average, and the income increases in geographies with higher volume of deliveries, he said. Amazon did not disclose how much of its deliveries are handled by its store network.

Amazon India