What are consumers buying at Kirana Stores this week?
The numbers as on 1st April 2020
We are in week 2 of the 21-day lockdown and we are seeing multiple news reports regarding the major role kirana stores across India is playing to ensure supply of goods to the consumers.
We took a look at some interesting stories emerging from across the 7 cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad on a few categories at the network of SnapBizz stores in the past few weeks – particularly during the 21-day lockdown.

The above graph shows that the stores are not remaining open (lack of staff or supplies), or not having the staff to bill (owing to staff returning to hometown and / or being used for home delivery). Either ways, there is a severe disruption observed.

This above spike could indicate some amount of panic buying, since a kirana store would normally generate a bill only when a customer buys a larger number of items (more than about 2-3). It also indicates more customers, in general.

We will examine further to see whether the consumers are buying more quantities or spending more money (price rises).

The above graph shows that during Covid-19, there is an increase demand for credit from the consumers. This has spiked in the third week, but looks to be settling towards the end of the month.
Category-wise Insights:
Here is what we have observed on some specific non-food categories, in terms of whether there is any evidence of disrupted supplies, change in their selling patterns, also quantities and price levels, owing to the COVID-19 situation.

We will be presenting a few more insights on each category plus some specific food categories here regularly. So watch this space! If there are any other categories or brands you would like us to deep-dive into, please write to us at vinay.s@snapbizz.com and we will be happy to study and share them with you.