● udaan brings accessibility and national reach to the 50 million MSMEs in India by building technology for them
● It offers e-commerce, logistics and credit solutions
● During the lockdown udaan met the demand of over 10,000 grocery and other stores in Madhya Pradesh
Bhopal, XX September 2020: udaan is India’s largest B2B ecommerce marketplace and distribution network of retailers, wholesalers, brands and manufacturers having operations across categories including lifestyle, electronics, home and kitchen, staples, fruits and vegetables, FMCG, toys etc.
It was founded in 2016 by former top Flipkart executives, Amod Malviya, former CTO; Vaibhav Gupta, former Senior VP and Sujeet Kumar, former President of Operations to solve India’s core trade problems of small retailers. The platform enables MSMEs, small manufacturers, kiranas, farmers, mills and brands to market, buy and sell their products across the country using technology. udaan offers the best products, credit solutions, improved quality and modern supply chain through logistics solutions, connecting millions of MSMEs throughout India and helping them grow their business through tech.
As the country emerges from the national lockdown to deal with Covid-19 pandemic that hit the globe, udaan helped digitize and tried solving many on-ground challenges faced by small businesses during lockdown.
The national lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus affected several sectors. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the supply of essential services could continue functioning during the lockdown, grocery and daily essential supply faced many challenges across the country. The lockdown disrupted the supply chain even though the Central Government mandated that essential supply will continue as it is, there were several roadblocks affecting smooth operations.
Despite obstacles, udaan continued its services during the lockdown with close to 80% smooth operations and met the demand of over 10,000 grocery and other stores in Madhya Pradesh during the lockdown. Post lockdown, when the government relaxed the rules, there has been a higher need of technology adoption by MSMEs. Madhya Pradesh has been at the forefront of tech adoption, with 5x increase in total buyers and 1.5x increase in retailers in the essential category adopting tech to source products.
Riyaz Ahmad of Naaz Kirana from Bhopal shared his experience of the lockdown and said, “Panic buying among customers created huge demand in the market but restriction in vehicle movement resulted in supply issues. Initially, we relied on our traditional suppliers, but they were not able to arrange logistics support and we were asked to manage the vehicles on our own. udaan helped us in providing steady supply of essential food grains. We used to get all the delivery related communications via application notification and our orders were delivered properly.”
Another retail store owner Sunil Gupta of Shree Kirana from Indore said, “Lockdown had a negative impact on my business. Supply chain and unavailability of products were the main issue for us. udaan supported us with timely supply of essentials to our stores. It helped many retailers to continue their business. It's a great platform and we are thankful to udaan.”
Sheikh Salman, owner of Branded, a lifestyle retail store from Bhopal said, “We were not able to open our shops during lockdown. After unlocking we saw a huge demand in the market but there was unavailability of the product in the local market and we were unable to visit other cities to purchase goods from suppliers. udaan helped us in getting good quality products with fast delivery to our shops. In addition, credit facilities from udaan also helped us revive our business in this difficult situation.”
udaan is enabling MSMEs to go digital with national access to low and best prices, good quality, and best selection and suppliers to enter new markets and reach out to new customers through udaan app. The objective is to use the power of technology to connect the retailers and suppliers enabling them to grow their business. udaan brings accessibility and national reach to the 50 million MSMEs present in India.
About udaan:
udaan, started in 2016, is India’s leading business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce platform. The platform has enabled logistics focused on B2B trade built on strong technology and operations for fulfilment and delivery service. It provides fast, low-cost, low-wastage, highly-reliable shipping and delivery of products across India for buyers and sellers on udaan. It is India’s largest horizontal B2B e-commerce platform with operations across categories including lifestyle, electronics, home and kitchen, staples, fruits and vegetables, FMCG, toys and general merchandise.udaan Capital, the NBFC arm focused on SME financing service, provides financial products for sellers and buyers to grow their business.
udaan is headquartered in Bangalore with branches in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai, Jaipur, Gurugram and Ahmedabad.
