DigiDukaan Links 21,000 Kirana Retailers to 450 Brands

Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal chaired the Bharat Commerce Chintan Shivir, a CEO roundtable called by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) together with the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) at Vanijya Bhawan in New Delhi. More than 40 heads of fast-moving consumer goods companies came to agree on a common road map for digitising India's general trade, the chain of neighbourhood shops through which most Indian households still buy.

What DigiDukaan does

ONDC's DigiDukaan treats the kirana shop as a buyer and digitises its purchasing. On one digital screen a shopkeeper can search and order goods across many brands, distributors and wholesalers, and can see prices, trade schemes and what is in stock. The design strengthens the distributor relationships a shop already has instead of cutting them out, and builds a shared base on which shared logistics, formal credit and other services can later be offered.

The numbers so far

Monthly repeat ordering in Hyderabad runs at 73 to 78 per cent. An early ONDC study of retailers found that 40 per cent of those surveyed held less stock of goods bought through DigiDukaan, which points to working capital being freed up. The National Traders' Welfare Board, chaired by Sunil J. Singhi, is working with ONDC to spread the platform among shopkeepers.

Five areas the roundtable took up

• A common digital identity for kirana retailers, usable with many brands and distributors
• Shared logistics and micro-warehousing for dependable next-day replenishment
• Formal credit tied to digital purchase records, to cut dependence on informal distributor credit
• Plug-and-play connectors to distributor management systems, with standard catalogues
• Commercial incentives realigned so digital ordering pays for brands, distributors and sales teams

Who took part

Senior people from Hindustan Unilever, Coca-Cola India, ITC, P&G, Marico, CavinKare, Pidilite, Britannia, Adani Wilmar, Haldiram's and Emami attended, with logistics and technology partners. DPIIT Secretary Amardeep Singh Bhatia said an open, interoperable network lets neighbourhood shops reach digital procurement at scale, and ONDC's Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Vibhor Jain said most such shops still run on pen, paper and memory.