Exclusive: B2B unicorn Udaan aims to onboard 5 million retailers by Dec 2022 in new grocery play

B2B unicorn Udaan is aiming to onboard 5 million small retailers or brick and mortar stores by December 2022 to tap into the growing grocery delivery market, top sources told BusinessToday.In. Udaan has started a pilot project for its community grocery delivery initiative in 1,000 cities and plans to expand to 1,500 cities. The startup has also set its target of 1 million transactions by the next month.

"The target is to onboard 5 million mini and micro-mini retailers by December 2022 and have 1 million grocery delivery orders by December 2021. Udaan had started onboarding the small retailers or kiranas through its subsidiary app, Price Company. They could leverage the presence of 2 million retailers already on the Udaan app," sources said.

An Udaan spokesperson declined to comment on the development when BusinessToday.In reached out.

Also read: Udaan to pilot B2C grocery delivery; to expand to more than 1000 cities

Udaan's foray into the grocery delivery through community-level commerce will pit it against the likes of Reliance through Jio Mart, Tata groups through Big Basket, which have upped their food-essentials hyper delivery games through acquisitions and expansions, and the niche players in the segment.

The business model, as per sources, is on the lines of China's big e-commerce startup, Pinduoduo that filled the vacuum of community-level shopping in China's internet commerce industry through group purchases.

"Under the pilot project, the local retailer or kirana takes bulk orders from the neighbourhoods or societies on Price Company app and then Udaan delivers the groceries in next 24 hours," sources said.

This would essentially translate into buyers constituting a group to purchase a bulk of groceries from the suppliers using Udaan's platform through which both the buyers or suppliers can avail discounts as well as increased profits, respectively.

The Online Grocery segment in India is witnessing disruption with niche players like Grofers and Zepto promising 10-minute delivery and larger players like Amazon and Flipkart strengthening their grocery verticals. Tata backed Big Basket on Wednesday opened its first physical retail outlet, Fresho, in Bangaluru with expansion on cards.

Also read: Tata Group-backed BigBasket forays into offline retail with launch of Fresho store in Bengaluru