Hey there 👋 

Here's your 3rd edition of the 'Kirana Club Insider' - your monthly report that gives you a great sense of all the buzz in the kirana channel about various FMCG categories and brands.

For those joining us for the first time, here’s a bit about Kirana Club. We’re like LinkedIn, but exclusively for kiranas. With over 15 Lakh kiranas onboarded, we are ‘India's Largest Kirana Community’ where the kirana owners create and consume content of fellow owners to make better business decisions.

It’s also the perfect platform for FMCG brands to come in and influence the kiranas at SCALE resulting in increased preference and trust in the kirana channel leading to ‘share of shelf’ gains. 📈

Let’s dive, shall we?

Retailer’s Top Picks

Cadbury tops the chart on the back of Rakshabandhan

Cadbury Celebrations was the most talked about brand among kiranas garnering about 4,55,648 organic impressions. Given that August was also about gifting in Rakshabandhan, brands like Cadbury Celebrations and Haldirams enjoyed a lot of interest in the kirana channel. Haldirams came in at 9th position garnering 1,84,545 organic impressions.

Cadbury was followed by Patanjali with 4,12,044 organic impressions and Parle with 4,04,587 organic impressions on the platform.

Kirana Ki Adalat

Patanjali is kirana’s favourite brand of the month

While Cadbury garnered the highest impressions, Patanjali enjoyed the highest number of video content pieces created by kiranas.

#emerging brand

Emerging brands see upto 8x increase in impression

Certain brands enjoyed an unprecedented increase in the number of organic impressions in the month of August compared to July. The criteria of selection was brands that garnered a minimum of 10K organic impressions in July and saw the biggest jump in the month of August.

Aashirvaad came out on top, followed by regional brands Suhana (Masala) and Nourish (Organic Snacking). Given that it was the monsoon season, Good Knight also saw a big jump as mosquito repellant are hot sellers in the season.

Survey Insights

'Kiranas trust other kiranas' - A Kirana Club Survey

Imagine a community where each kirana owner isn't just a seller but an influencer, inspiring others and shaping trends in the FMCG world. That's precisely what our mission is at Kirana Club.

We ran a platform wide survey to understand, 'which source of business related information does a kirana owner trust the most?' A total of 10,000+ kirana owners responded to the survey.

51% kirana retailers said that they trust their fellow kirana owners more than any other source. For them, information from other kirana owners is seen as unbiased and more trustworthy.

This was in a way validation of our reason to exist. On a daily basis, kirana owners use the Kirana Club platform to generate content on various fmcg categories and brands in them. The content is consumed by fellow kirana owners enabling them to make better business decisions.

Wholesalers came in at 2nd with 27% kirana retailers opting for it. This comes as no surprise to us, as before a platform like Kirana Club was born, for most kiranas, wholesalers were their only source of information.

KC Insights

Unwrapping sweets, treats and retail trends

In the backdrop of Rakshabandhan, we ran a platform wide poll asking kirana owners what they thought would be their top-selling category. Options included - 1. Namkeens 2. Packed Mithais 3. Festive Biscuits packs 4. Ready Mixes 5. Chocolate Boxes. More than 25000 kiranans across 10 states responded to the poll. The results are a clear showcase of the diversity and preferences of various markets.

At an overall level, packed ‘mithais’ including the all-time favourites ‘soan-papdi’ and ‘pedas’ came out to be the favourites of the kirana channel as they stocked them up by kilos. The kirana owners in the markets that have traditionally favoured the quintessential Indian sweets i.e. Rajasthan, MP, Chhattisgarh, UP, Bihar, and Jharkhand, indicated stocking up packed ‘mithais’ the most. The reason why brands like Haldirams and Bikaji also enjoyed a high amount of mentions and impressions in the content that kirana owners posted on Kirana Club.

The popularity of ready mixes among kirana owners seemed to be quite high in the MP-Chattisgarh markets, which linked well with their preference for ‘mithais’. One of the top-selling instant-mix has consistently been ‘gulab jamun’. This led to a high number of impressions for brands like Gits on Kirana Club.

Kiranas in markets like Delhi-NCR, Punjab, Haryana, and Gujarat were showing the highest preference for chocolate boxes. Not surprising, Cadbury Celebration was the #1 brand on Kirana Club for the month of August.

Making a qualitative judgement, these markets are over-indexed on social signalling and making a statement of sorts on such big occasions. Many lifestyle and premium brands generally do better in these markets, the reason why we feel chocolate boxes were the preferred choice over packed ‘mithais’.

This survey was covered by some of the top publications in the country.

KC x Brand

Cycle Pure - A case of figuring out the market standing before the big push

Problem Statement:

Cycle Pure wanted to do a big push for their wet-dhoop product in the months of July and August but given intense competition in the category, the brand wanted to first assess their standing in the kirana channel vis-a-vis competition

Solution:

Phase-1 of the solution was a platform wide poll to get an understanding where Cycle Pure stood versus its competitors.

Phase-2 comprised of ‘Kirana Influencer Campaigns’ to drive consideration for the wet-dhoop product amongst kiranas in the 10 big states.

Outcomes:

From the poll results, Cycle Pure realised that it was top preference for kirana owners in 2 big markets. However it was lagging in terms of kirana preference in other markets.

In the 2nd phase, the influencer campaign resulted in 7L+ impressions for the brand, reaching 1.5L+ unique kiranas.

We also spotted opportunities for Cycle Pure in some of the micro markets and recommended the brand to run schemes and activation campaigns exclusively for these markets.

#trending

Independence Day trend that took over Kirana Club 🔥

Kirana owners always have creative ideas up their sleeves to grow their business. We saw one such creative idea turn into a trend of sorts on the Kirana Club app.

In the run-up to Independence Day, one of our kirana owners arranged items on his shelf using products that had the colours orange, white and green. This post became a viral trend on the platform and other kiranas were so inspired by this idea that within a few hours, we saw hundreds of pictures of products arranged in tri-colors on the kirana shelves, pouring in from different parts of the country.

Kiranas across India had started crafting their own tri-color masterpieces using items like soaps, lentils, shampoo and more. A total of 222 kirana retailers participated and the entire Kirana Club app feed was filled with the tri-colors.

Kirana Influencer of the Month

Meet Harish Ji - Kirana Club's Influencer of the Month

Picture an influencer in your mind? Is it a guy or a girl in their 20s, wearing trendy clothes and cool shades, with a ring light and a camera pointed to themselves?

Meet Harish ji, he is unlike any other influencer you have seen. He is a proud kirana owner from Jalna, Maharashtra. And just like any other famous influencer, he too has a big fan following of fellow kirana owners, who don't just like his content but also trust his words.

Sounds unbelievable? Here are some numbers.

Harish ji is testament to Kirana Club's mission of turning every kirana owner into an influencer helping fellow kirana owners take more informed and timely decisions for business success.

Kirana Club in Media

Kirana Club at CII Innoverge 2023

Our founder, Anshul Gupta, was honoured to participate in the CII Innoverge 2023 event, where he shared his insights on the paramount significance of innovation within the realm of retail.

During the session, he articulated how innovation serves as the driving force behind the evolution of the retail industry, reshaping customer experiences, optimising operational efficiency, and fostering sustainable growth.

The event served as a dynamic platform for a diverse exchange of ideas, particularly regarding the evolving landscape of retail, with a special focus on kiranas.

Feedback & Support

Got a minute? We’d love to hear your thoughts!

We are so excited to see your overwhelming response and feedback. Thank you for fuelling our fire to create the best content for you.

Reply to this email with your suggestions, ideas or feedback and help us make this an even better read for you. We’ll be back with more insights and learnings from our exciting Kirana community.

Until next month,
Team Kirana Club