Kirana vs quick commerce: is it hurting local shops?

Updated October 2026

Quick commerce is taking some business from kirana stores in big cities. Nobody has reliably counted how many kiranas have shut. The often-quoted “2 lakh closures” comes from a distributors’ body that never shared its method.

Online grocery was only about 1.5% of India’s grocery market in 2025.

Has quick commerce shut 2 lakh kirana stores?

Most of the alarm comes from the All India Consumer Products Distributors Federation (AICPDF). It says it speaks for about 4 lakh FMCG distributors. Distributors lose business when brands sell straight to quick-commerce apps, so they have a direct stake in the debate.

Date	Claim or action by AICPDF	Status
Oct 2024	Claim: over 2 lakh kirana shops shut “over the past year”, about 45% of them in metros, 30% in tier-1 and 25% in tier-2 and tier-3 cities.	No method or data shared. Not independently checked.
Nov 2024	Claim: FMCG companies were dumping near-expiry stock through quick-commerce apps at deep discounts.	An allegation, sent to the Consumer Affairs Ministry.
20 Feb 2025	Complaint to the Competition Commission of India (CCI) against Blinkit, Zepto and Instamart over predatory pricing, with price comparisons for 100 products. It said quick commerce was hurting about one crore small shops.	The CCI ran a preliminary inquiry in June 2025. No formal investigation order made public.
Dec 2025	Letter to SEBI objecting to IPOs by loss-making quick-commerce companies.	Zepto got SEBI approval in May 2026 and later put off its IPO for its own reasons.

The government has not counted kirana closures, and there is no official figure for how many kiranas India has today. The CCI has not published an order on the discounting complaint either. If you have a dated figure, send it to our editors.

How much grocery shopping has moved from kiranas to quick commerce apps

Finding	Year	Type
Kirana stores’ share of retail fell from 95% (2018) to 92.6% (2023) and is projected at 88.9% in 2028.	2024	Estimate
46% of quick-commerce users said they had cut their kirana buying; over 80% had moved at least a quarter of their kirana buying to the apps.	2024	Survey of app users
Online grocery was about 1.5% of India’s total grocery market.	2025	Estimate
Quick commerce handled more than two-thirds of online grocery orders.	2024	Estimate
Quick commerce is projected to reach close to 5% of all Indian retail by FY31.	2026	Projection

In city homes that use the apps, shopping habits have changed fast. A survey of app users speaks only for app users, and says nothing about each app’s share of the market.

Where kiranas face the most competition from dark stores

A kirana in a Bengaluru or Delhi colony faces a very different market from one in a district town. Dark stores are spread very unevenly across India.

City tier	Places	Dark stores	Share	Average per place
Metro / tier 1	16	4,978	60.5%	311
Tier 2	42	1,711	20.8%	41
Tier 3	442	1,539	18.7%	3

The 10 largest cities have 4,229 dark stores, 51.4% of the total. Bengaluru alone has 926.
359 towns have between one and five dark stores (689 in all).
In 218 towns only one dark-store app is present, and in 192 of those it is Blinkit.

In most small towns, a kirana competes with a handful of dark stores at most, often from one app. In the metros, five or six apps may deliver to the same colony, and dark store counts by city show where that overlap is heaviest.

Dark store growth in the metros may be slowing. In July 2026 the metros had about 4,300 dark stores, against an estimated 3,600 that could run at a profit. Even so, 9 in 10 new stores were still opening in existing markets.

Kirana vs quick commerce app for shoppers

Feature	Kirana store	Quick commerce app
Speed	Instant if you walk in; home delivery on request, timing varies	About 10–30 minutes from a nearby dark store
Payment	Cash, UPI and monthly khata for regulars	Paid at order or on delivery; no running credit
Quantities	Loose items and small amounts	Mostly packed items in fixed sizes
Extra charges	None for walk-in shoppers	Delivery, handling and small-cart fees on smaller orders
Range	What the owner stocks for the locality, and can order in on request	About 20,000 to 80,000 products per Blinkit store, by city, plus electronics and beauty
Where available	Almost every town and village	498 cities and towns with a dark store

Why most kirana stores are still in business

Kiranas and apps serve different shopping trips. App orders are small top-ups, and Blinkit’s average order was ₹518 in April–June 2026. Kiranas still give credit (“khata”), sell loose items and welcome walk-in shoppers, which the apps don’t.
Some apps work through shops. JioMart delivers from 2,613 Reliance Stores rather than dark stores. A few startups have tried sending app orders to independent kiranas through ONDC. One of them, KiranaPro, had its systems wiped in 2025 and had to rebuild.
Jobs have shifted as well as been lost. Dark stores employ pickers, packers and lakhs of delivery riders, often from the same neighbourhoods. Whether gig work in quick commerce is better than kirana work is a separate question.

How a kirana can compete with quick commerce apps

Take orders on WhatsApp and phone. Your regulars already trust you. Home delivery to nearby societies with no delivery or handling fee matches much of what an app offers.
Keep khata and loose items. Dark stores don’t offer monthly credit or small loose quantities.
Stock what your regulars ask for. Local brands, regional staples and items the apps often run out of give people a reason to walk in.
Join an ONDC-based app. It lets your shop take online orders without building its own app.

Most of the differences between a dark store and a kirana come down to who can walk in and how each order is filled.

Frequently asked questions about kiranas and quick commerce

Can a kirana sell through quick delivery apps?

Not on the big apps, because they deliver from their own dark stores. ONDC-based apps can send online orders to local shops. JioMart delivers from Reliance Stores, not from independent kiranas.