Festive Push: Flipkart on boards 27,000 kiranas to strengthen last-mile delivery

New Delhi: Walmart-owned e-commerce company Flipkart said that it has completed the onboarding of nearly 27,000 kiranas across 700 cities to its pan-India supply chain, helping it reach out to millions of new consumers during the upcoming festive event, The Big Billion Days.

The move according to the company will further strengthen and personalise e-commerce experience for its existing 160 million customers, help deepen its reach to newer geographies and consumers and support kiranas by enhancing their income.

According to Flipkart, the nation-wide kirana onboarding started about six months ago, undertaken keeping in mind the massive scale of the upcoming festive season, which witnesses heightened demand from customers from across the country and also grow the business of its kirana partners.

“Festive season and the Big Billion Days provide us a great opportunity to further our principles of inclusion and accessibility. Kiranas are the oldest and most widely spread retail format in India which exhibit the modernness of the supply chain and deliver a successful customer experience management model. Our approach to inclusivity for last-mile partners is guided by the synergies we share. After digital payments, the next big revolution in Kirana is going to be ushered in conjunction with e-commerce. It will re-position and re-invent kirana stores as convenience stores from an e-commerce perspective, while offering them a new source of revenue, making it a win-win situation for all,” said Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO of Flipkart Group.


Flipkart already has a large supply chain network, currently delivering over 1 million shipments every day across almost 100% of the pincodes in the country. With the 27,000 additional kirana power, Flipkart will now be able to elevate not only the consumer experience but also scale up its reach with millions of additional deliveries during the Big Billion Days, especially in Tier 2 and 3 towns.

The e-commerce company recently said it has also expanded the reach of its pick-up operations in 800 additional cities and towns in the last six months, a move that will help bring thousands of new sellers, MSMEs, domestic manufacturers and artisans into the e-commerce fold.

More than 60,000 sellers from these cities and towns are set to benefit from this expansion, especially as it comes ahead of the crucial festive season, the company had said in a statement.