udaan shipped over 260 mn products across 1000 cities of Bharat in 2021

Udaan, India’s largest business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce platform, shipped over 20 lakh tonnes under the essentials (fresh, FMCG, staples, pharma) and 260 million products of non-essentials (electronics, general merchandise, and lifestyle) categories catering to about 50 million orders across 1000 towns and cities of Bharat. The platform also onboarded over 5 lakh new retailers and kirana shop owners in 2021. During this period, over 625 sellers on the platform achieved sales worth Rs 1 crore each.

“While the entire world, including India, was impacted by the second and third wave of the pandemic, udaan was able to keep the wheels of economic activities moving by leveraging the power of e-commerce,” said Vaibhav Gupta, co-founder and CEO, udaan. “The deep capabilities that we have invested in and built over the past five years – solid distribution network, efficient supply chain, strong sourcing and lending capabilities, and advanced tech platform – were the key differentiators that set udaan apart.”

In 2021, udaan witnessed a huge surge in business across essentials category adding over 300,000 new retailers and a repeat purchase rate of over 94 per cent. The demand for FMCG products grew by 77 per cent and included about 500 million biscuit packets, about 190 million namkeen packets, 365 million beverages (units). This was followed by ready to eat products, 160 million noodle packets and 60 million chocolate packets. In addition, 950 million personal care and 320 million home care items were sold in 2021. The highest demand for these products came from Delhi, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Telangana, and Rajasthan.

“The addition of lakhs of new retailers and kirana shop owners to the platform, high repeat purchase rate, and distribution partnership with a large number of regional and national brands are a testimony to the huge cost benefits and ease of doing business that udaan offers to its business partners,” said Gupta.”We are proud to lead this revolution which we call ‘Bharat ka e-commerce’ that is benefitting millions of kirana shops, retailers and small businesses of Bharat.”

Demand for staples products grew by 45 per cent year-over-year and included 12 lakh tonnes of sugar and oil and 5 lakh tonnes of rice, pulses and flours. The highest demand for these products came from Delhi, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Telangana and West Bengal.

In 2021 udaan shipped over 100 million electronic products comprising of 85 million accessories and consumer electronics, 10 million mobile handsets, and 8 million computers and IT accessories. The platform witnessed a large volume of orders for electronic products from Karnataka, Assam, Nagaland, and West Bengal.

Retailers in the general merchandise category placed orders for over 30 million products. The demand ranged from 7 million metal utensils, 6 million cleaning products and kitchen tools, 5 million plastic products, 3 million appliances and cookware items and 1 million cycles, toys and baby care products. udaan received large volume of orders for general merchandise items from North-East States, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Madhya Pradesh.

udaan’s lifestyle business comprising clothing, accessories, and footwear shipped over 130 million products to 22 per cent of the total lifestyle retailers present in India catering to 80 lakh orders in 2021. The platform shipped over 40 million face masks across India recording a 60 per cent increase in demand as compared to 2020. Over 5 million pieces of masks were shipped to Assam, and Uttar Pradesh each, while West Bengal, Nagaland, and Bihar saw a cumulative sale of around 10 million masks. In addition, 9 million comfort wear products, 9 million slippers, 8 million T-shirts, and 3 million shirts were shipped across India. The highest demand for lifestyle products came from Mizoram followed by Karnataka, Telangana, Bihar and Assam.

300 sellers in Electronics, 200 sellers in lifestyle and 125 sellers in General Merchandise category achieved sales of over Rs 1 crore in 2021. In addition, 150 out of the 300 sellers in Electronics achieved sales of over Rs 2 crore during this period.