Q-comm upstarts sidestep dark stores in ONDC push

A few nimble startups are quietly challenging the conventional wisdom of India's quick commerce sector.

- Sakshi Sadashiv

A few nimble startups are quietly challenging the conventional wisdom of India's quick commerce sector. With government-backed Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) platform as partner, they are shunning costly dark stores in favour of tie-ups with corner shops.

Bengaluru-based KiranaPro and Apna Mart, as well as Mumbai's Kiko Live are among those pioneering this asset-light model in India's small towns, aiming for a more sustainable path to quick delivery of an assortment of goods in markets that have proven tough for the larger players to crack.

This new cohort of startups is focusing on merchant adoption and integrating neighbourhood retailers into their delivery networks by leveraging ONDC, which is a common digital platform that allows sellers and buyers to connect and do business with each other. It helps different stores and apps talk to each other.

"The dark store model is not a sustainable quick commerce model," says Deepak Ravindran, founder of KiranaPro, which is primarily operational in non-metro cities. "There are around 300,000 kiranas on the ONDC network. What they don't have is us - someone who brings traffic."