Kirana stores resisted e-commerce, but can they survive instant delivery onslaught?

This article was originally published in Rest of World, which covers technology’s impact outside the West.

Mahadev Waghji Patel ran Choice Mart for nine years in an affluent neighborhood of Mumbai. His local customers relied on the store for their monthly groceries, and continued to come in even when e-commerce players like Amazon and Flipkart gained popularity in the mid-2010s. Patel put food on the table and educated his kids on the income from the store.

Two months ago, Patel shut down Choice Mart and opened a hardware store in a different neighborhood. “It’s not possible to deliver within 10 minutes, free of cost,” he told Rest of World. “The best option is to shutter down and switch your line of work.”

India’s kirana stores – small shops selling daily essentials that are a staple of almost every city neighborhood – dominated the country’s retail economy even after modern trade arrived 20 years ago, largely due to their own efforts to resist foreign-owned big-box stores. The mom-and-pop stores fought against Walmart’s encroachment; after Amazon entered the country in 2013, they survived by working with the online retailer to store inventory and serve as pickup points. They created similar partnerships with homegrown giants like Reliance Retail and Flipkart.

But the arrival of quick-commerce companies like Zepto, Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart, and Dunzo...

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