At least two recent research reports, one by Technopak and another by LocalCircles, juxtaposed physical neighbourhood stores (kirana) against e-commerce to show physical retail had served the consumer much better since the lockdown kicked in. They also gave out numbers to say that e-commerce was a tiny fraction of the total retail pie in the country, suggesting that the role of e-tailing was insignificant even as consumers were forced to stay home due to Covid-19-linked lockdown.
Both points had merit, but the reports missed out on why e-commerce failed its loyalists during one of the toughest weeks. Coming to the second
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