This start-up aims to get your friendly neighbourhood store on ONDC

As much as 95 per cent of India’s retail business currently comes from offline stores with offline retail shopping contributing over 25 per cent to India’s GDP (currently $883 billion, which is expected to go up to $1.3 trillion by 2024), as per a report by Forrester, a leading global market research firm. 

Further, 88 per cent of the $883 billion comes from unorganised small shops that typically do not have a digital footprint and around 10 per cent comes from home deliveries.  

This huge business segment is still not digitised and a Mumbai-based start-up is eyeing this vast business potential to get these players online and even on the ONDC – Open Network for Digital network. 

Launched in the year 2020 by three co-founders Alok Chawla, Virendra Kumar and Neeta Rijwani, start-up Kiko Live is a SaaS solution for neighbourhood stores, that helps them retain and build their home delivery business, and, going ahead, will also help them get a digital storefront on the ONDC network. 

This is how it works. 

The Kiko app helps local shops manage and grow their delivery business and gives them a simple interface to collate all delivery orders. Sellers can use the Kiko Live solution to get discovered, accept payments, and deliver to new as well as existing customers. 

It further helps sellers get a digital footprint, and also win back business lost to other online platforms, which may have an edge due to a digital footprint and quick trackable deliveries – a common benchmark now in hyperlocal commerce. 

Additionally, Kiko Live is in the process of launching as a seller app on ONDC, and will help drive discoverability and business to small retailers from ONDC. 

“The biggest benefit for presence on ONDC for platforms like ours is that it gives our sellers access to not just buyers who use our platform, but over 900 million buyers from across buyer apps that will transact over ONDC over the next couple of years,” says co-founder Chawla. 

“Additionally, as platforms will charge lower commissions due to no customer acquisition cost, sellers can offer products for cheaper and still make good margins. We have already seen how the early launch on ONDC especially in food delivery has brought down the cost of food ordered on ONDC vis a vis any other food delivery platform,” he adds. 

Indeed, as ONDC is believed to be a game changer for digital commerce in India as the intention of the platform is to empower small sellers to be able to sell online without any kid of bias. 

This assumes significance also because of the fact that neighbourhood retail store home delivery business is estimated to be worth $70 billion annually but is largely unorganised with no online ordering or trackable delivery features. 

While most retailers rely on phone or WhatsApp for such delivery orders, Kiko Live helps stores get discovered, offer trackable quick hyperlocal services, and also help retailers get discovered and sell on ONDC. 

The start-up that has a tagline of ‘Empowering Local Retailers’ currently has more than 10,000 sellers registered on its platform, of which 800 are already activated for the hyperlocal delivery services. It processed over 400 orders per day. 

In terms of the revenue model, the start-up charges sellers for each service they use, including delivery and payments. Then, there are additional listing fees and subscriptions for services including selling on ONDC, loyalty program participation etc. 

In the current financial year, the start-up expects ONDC to launch completely and it aims to onboard 25,000 plus active sellers on the platform, and achieve cash break even. 

Going ahead, the platform plans to boost its revenue stream by charging a subscription from every seller based on the services they use on the platform. 

“In the next five years, we will be the default platform for millions of small retailers across India (including small towns) to sell online. Aside from selling on ONDC, we will also provide them tools to manage their business more efficiently, retarget their existing customers, guide them on what inventories to stock based on sales data, and offer many other value-added services,” explains Chawla. 

Incidentally, the start-up is in the process of building a AI chatbot for buyers to shop on ONDC and has also filed a patent for the process and algorithm 

With an employee strength of just 20, the start-up has also managed to secure cumulative funding of $1.1 million till date and is in the process of raising another $1.5 million.  

With a current valuation of $10 million, it boasts of a marquee list of investors -- 9Unicorns, Venture Catalysts, SOSV, GSF along with top officials or founders of companies like IndiaMART, OLX India, Nazara Technologies and Bharatmatrimony.