Amazon India Launches ‘KiranaNow’ To Bring Kirana Stores Online

“Let’s not leave any stone unturned” seems to be the motto of, online marketplace, Amazon. This time the ecommerce firm launched an express delivery platform for grocery called KiranaNow.

Amazon’s KiranaNow is in partnership with mom-and-pop stores, which will presently run as a pilot project on the mobile platform. The service will be available only at some pincodes in Bangalore, delivering within two-four hours, operating between 9am to 6pm.

The kirana stores will upload their catalogues on Amazon’s platform and the ecommerce marketplace will suffice the need of backend and technology. At this point of time the deliveries will be taken care of by Amazon, the kiranas and third-party logistics.

Speaking on the launch, Amit Agarwal, Amazon India’s country head said that KiranaNow is a by-India, for-India service built particularly for the local market. “We want to provide maximum convenience to customers when shopping for their everyday needs and enable them to shop from the ecosystem of their local stores on their mobile phones and get things delivered when they really need it”, he added.

Just recently, the online marketplace has also started selling cars, bikes parts and accessories delivering over 22,000 products pertaining to the category. It has also set up its own logistic company in India by the name Amazon Transportation Services.

According to the media reports, out of the overall $530 Bn retail (merchandise) spending that was done in 2014-15, the food and grocery retail business accounts for about $370 Bn. Major horizontal ecommerce players chasing gross merchandise values (GMVs) in double-digit billions of dollars have no option but to enter the F&B segment in order to achieve these goals.

Grocery etailing till now has seen core players like Big Basket, localbanya and Ekstop. With the bigger horizontal etailers coming to the vertical, hyper local delivery startups like Grofers, Delyver would also like to grab a chance to amplify business by facilitating the deliveries. In US, Amazon operates its online grocery delivery service by the name AmazonFresh since 2007.