Local kirana shops embrace retail tech as Covid-19 puts focus on essentials

According to RedSeer, online grocery will grow eight times to $18 billion market size in 2024, with 40-50% growth seen in the 2021 calendar year

When Paytm, the biggest player in consumer and merchant digital payments, launched a QR-code scanner with voice capability in February 2020, little did it know that the IoT (Internet of Things) device would become a highly useful piece of tech especially during the pandemic. The soundbox device plays the message, “money received on the Paytm” when a buyer makes online payment, giving the convenience to the merchant of not having to look at his or her phone every time. Hundreds of thousands of merchants took the upgrade, and now it is spotted at every second small-scale and road-side store.

QR-codes, soundbox