Modern trade stores pop up across India

These independent stores offer more options for buying household items

- Suneera Tandon

Standalone modern trade stores which are smaller than organised retail stores or supermarkets but larger than neighbourhood kiranas or groceries, are cropping up across India, not in large numbers yet but enough to take notice.

For consumers, stores like M.K. Retail in Bengaluru, ELT in Noida and Aksar in Mumbai, offer more options for buying household items, besides the convenience of being located closer home than larger supermarkets.

Data from various independent sources peg the number of these stores at 7,900 to 10,000. As per Love in Store, a store loyalty management firm, which works with large consumer goods companies, India had 7,914 such independent trade stores at the end of 2023.

Over 4,300 such stores are located in South India, followed by the North with over 1,536 such outlets, as tracked by the firm, which works with packaged goods companies that supply to modern trade as well as general, or kirana, stores.