Kirana comes full circle

It’s true that the Covid lockdown made grocery glamorous, with numerous e-commerce companies and start-ups bringing kirana to the centre stage. But two recent steps, both by the original posterboy of e-commerce, Flipkart, make it clear that we’ve come full circle on grocery. Flipkart, owned by American retail major Walmart, announced its wholesale unit’s foray into grocery retail some days back. This meant retailers and other businesses can now buy grocery online through Flipkart’s B2B platform. Also, the Bengaluru-based company unveiled a nationwide campaign to popularise its grocery segment on the marketplace for the masses. The two steps suggest that