Udaan’s Food & FMCG Business achieves over 95% YoY growth as Kirana stores

 Udaan’s Food & FMCG Business achieves over 95% YoY growth as Kirana stores of
Bharat shop online during the ‘Mega Bharat Sale’

Udaan, India’s largest business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce platform, today announced that its Food & FMCG Business achieved over 95% YoY growth in October fuelled by the ‘Mega Bharat Sale’ - India’s biggest e-B2B sale event for kirana shops and small retailers across the country. The FMCG business witnessed a YoY growth of over 115% with major demands coming from Bharat.

During the festive month the platform witnessed a 75% jump in retailer participation and over 90% repeat purchase coming from existing buyers. The platform also witnessed major participation from buyers from Tier 2, 3 cities with North India leading in overall sales closely followed by South, West and East respectively.

udaan’s Food Business - comprising of FMCG, staples, and Fresh products - offers over 20,000 products across grocery, beverages, cereals, pulses, spices, edible oils, home & personal care, fresh and dairy categories across major cities.

During the sale period, over 100+ brands and over 5000+ SKUs (Stock-Keeping Units) from small and large fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) brands were on offer and retailers/ kirana stores transacted digitally and made huge savings on their purchases.

Gaurav Dhawan, Commercial Director – Food & FMCG Business, udaan, said, “Mega Bharat Sale is part of our endeavour to empower the small retailers and kirana stores of Bharat by offering them a vast range of quality products at the most affordable prices. The huge success of the event is a testimony to the value that we have been able to offer to these small kirana stores and retailers, in addition to our customer-first approach, by leveraging technology and eCommerce scale. We will continue to build on the growth momentum and partner with more national and regional brands enabling small retailers of Bharat to grow their business on our platform. We are humbled by the huge response from all participating brands and the retailer community and thank them for the success of our first festive sale event.”

The consumer staples category including Sugar, Cereals and Flour also registered highest ever sales catering to festive demand in the market.

The udaan app which was enhanced and optimised to provide seamless experience also experienced Highest ever ‘App Opens’ in a day by small retailers and kirana stores to make purchases.

udaan has invested more than Rs 4000 crores in the past 12-18 months across different pillars of business - technology, supply chain, category, credit, people, compliance - to accelerate and strengthen capabilities to serve its customers better. The company has also undertaken various initiatives to enhance overall customer experience by leveraging deep customer analytics as well as improving the speed of the app.

udaan currently has a network of over 3 million registered users and 25-30,000 sellers across 900+ cities in the country covering more than 12,000 pin codes. The platform has over 2 million retailers, chemists, kirana shops, HoReCa, farmers, etc. doing over 5 million transactions per month, making udaan a leader in the b2b eCommerce business. The company operates one of the largest logistics networks with over 200 warehouses spread over 10 Mn Sq Ft space across the country delivering over 8000 tons of products everyday. To cater to the growing demand, udaan plans to scale its warehouse capacity to 50 million square feet across the country in the next 7-8 years.

NeoGrowth aims to double turnover of small business owners in

 NeoGrowth aims to double turnover of small business owners in three years

NeoGrowth Credit Pvt. Ltd., a pioneer in SME lending in India, recently launched diGibizz, an end-to-end platform to help small businesses become digital-ready. The company aims to help over 2 lakh SMEs double their turnover in 3 years by offering access to best-in-class digital solutions through business solution providers.

The platform was conceptualised based on a research done during the pandemic that small businesses need to digitise their offerings to meet stiff competition from big brands and shopping apps and portals.

With the diGibizz platform, the company aims to provide consultation and technology solutions that help small businesses scale up and become profitable. After a quick analysis, customised solution will be provided to business owners such as retailers, restaurants, apparel shops, kirana stores, petrol pumps, groceries, pharmacies and other MSMEs. This could be financial, non-financial, or combination of both depending on the gaps that small business owners have identified through diGibizz Digit-O-Meter smart analysis.

“NeoGrowth has always focused on creating a positive social impact by lending to first-gen entrepreneurs, assisting women entrepreneurs, and supporting our customers to create jobs and improve credit scores through our loans. With the shift to e-commerce, online bill payments & e-groceries since Covid, our diGibizz platform will become more relevant to customers. DiGibizz is our endeavour to digitally enable small businesses to transform themselves and drive business growth in the new normal. With diGibizz and other suite of offerings, we are aiming to reach Rs 2,000 crore of AUM by FY22.” said Mr. Piyush Khaitan, Founder & Managing Director, NeoGrowth Credit Pvt. Ltd.

Ms. Reshma Deokar, owner of Advait Medical & General Store, Mumbai, one of the first customers of the platform, said, “In the fast-evolving pharma sector, diGibizz has supported a woman entrepreneur like me at the right time to upgrade my business. Today, my business has grown to the next level with NeoGrowth’s support.”

The diGiBizz platform is available on http://digibizz.neogrowth.in.

Headquartered in Mumbai, the company serves 70+ industries with a presence across 27 cities in India. NeoGrowth has disbursed over INR 6,000 crores loans to 28,000 customers till date. To create a greater social impact by providing easy finance to under-served markets with advanced tech-solutions, the company disbursed loans to first-generation entrepreneurs, women entrepreneurs, and first-time borrowers. On the technology front, it has heavily invested in analytics, machine learning, digitisation of customer journey and digitally verified alternate sources of data, which has helped it reduce the turnaround time for loan sanctions and underwrite basis various types of alternate data. It provides financing to retailers, restaurants, apparel shops, kirana stores, petrol pumps, groceries, pharmacies and other MSMEs with flexible repayment options and customized products addressing multiple business needs.

YES BANK and Worldline support merchants and communities by

YES BANK and Worldline support merchants and communities
by providing remote payment solutions through SMS Pay

·         Merchants can accept remote payments through SMS PAY using the POS Terminal

·         SMS Pay is offered to YES BANK Merchants at no additional cost

·         Assists in maintaining social distancing by providing remote and contactless payment solutions

 YES BANK announced the launch of SMS Pay functionality on POS terminals in partnership with Worldline, enabling merchants to accept contactless and remote payments from their customers. This initiative is in line with the Bank’s commitment to support small and medium businesses in restarting their businesses while providing safety to their customers. SMS Pay is a step towards facilitating merchants to accept remote payments on their POS machines and enabling their customers to transact safely from the comfort of their homes.

 Through this, a safe and simple platform is created for shopkeepers and merchants including local kirana stores & departmental stores enabling them to request payments against invoices by simply entering amount and customer contact details on their POS machines. Instantly an SMS is triggered to the customer’s mobile number with a payment link, allowing them to pay securely through their domestic debit and credit cards.

Speaking on the launch, Rajanish Prabhu, Business Head - Credit Cards and Merchant Acquisition, YES BANK, said “In line with the Bank’s strategy of building a transformed Digital Bank, we along with Worldline have been working on supporting our merchant partners through innovative solutions which help them unlock their businesses in a safe and convenient manner. SMS Pay is a simple yet convenient value addition to our merchant POS solutions and provides an alternative channel of payment acceptance for our merchants at zero incremental cost. SMS Pay will help in boosting business by providing merchants dual benefit of enabling them to serve outside their vicinity as payments can be made remotely as well providing safety and convenience to their customers.”

 Speaking on the launch, Deepak Chandnani, Managing Director, Worldline South Asia and Middle East said, "Consumers continue to increasingly prefer digital payment options over cash. Technology enabled contactless payment solutions are the need of the hour and Worldline is in the forefront of this emerging trend. We will continue to innovate and enhance the functionalities of all our acquiring solutions including POS terminals in order to provide convenient, frictionless and secure solutions for merchants as well as customers. We are pleased to extend our relationship with our trusted partner, YES BANK to provide the SMS Pay feature for their merchants.”

Platform Benefits:

·         Zero contact payments

·         Remote & quick setup on POS terminals

·         Trusted and secure

·         Easy to operate

 Simple and Instant Payment Process Flow

• YES BANK POS terminals have an SMS Pay option displayed in the terminal menu
• Upon selecting SMS Pay, the terminal prompts merchant to enter customer’s mobile number and sale amount
• The customer receives URL for making payment via SMS
• Customer completes the payment remotely via Internet payment gateway (IPG) page through his or her preferred mode of payment (domestic credit or debit card)
• Once the payment is complete, charge slip is generated from the POS machine and merchant can deliver goods or services