With the changing times, companies have resorted to stepping out of their comfort zones and venturing into the unknown amid efforts to diversify revenue streams. Many companies have done this over the years, and now it is Udaan’s turn. The B2B ecommerce major is now planning to enter the consumer-focused grocery sector with Price Company, its new platform to rival names like Meesho and DealShare.
That’s right, Udaan is moving beyond the circles it has been operating for the past five years – the business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce vertical – to the consumer-focused grocery business. From now, both businesses and individual consumers can place orders on Udaan.
This might be the right time for Udaan to undertake this venture, given that people have resorted to ordering groceries (and other stuff) in the past one-and-a-half year as the pandemic confined them to their homes. This boom in the online grocery segment has been beneficial to firms like Zomato, Grofers, and others.
Udaaan already claims to be India’s largest B2B e-commerce platform, and its arrival to a new arena will add to the number of categories it currently spans across – lifestyle, electronics, home & kitchen, staples, fruits and vegetables, FMCG, pharmaceuticals, toys, and general merchandise. Beware Meesho and DealShare, you have a new competitor now!
With this new development, Udaan’s small retailers who are from, and operate in, Tier II to Tier IV cities, will be acting as Udaan’s as community leaders and placing group orders for their neighborhoods. Additionally, individual consumers will be able to place orders and receive the goods later on.
Udaan has a network of over 3 million registered users and 25,0000-30,000 sellers across over 900 cities in India, as well as over 1.7 million retailers, chemists, Kirana shops, farmers, and others. The platform clocks over 4.5 million transactions per month, enabling small manufacturers, farmers, and brands (the sellers) to market and sell their products across the country at low cost, and enabling buyers like shopkeepers, Kirana, restaurants, street vendors, and others to choose from a large selection of high-quality products at best prices.
It seems that this move is not a sudden one, but had been in the works for quite some time. It was fuelled by the surge in online grocery orders and deliveries, and the time is ripe for Udaan to leverage its network of small retailers and Kirana store owners to tap into consumer demand.
