Digital Darlings, Meet GT Complexity: How D2C Brands Can Avoid Crashing at the Kirana Doorstep

“This was a battleground we weren’t prepared for!"

When Akash Agrawalla, Founder of Zoff Spices launched his brand in GT or General Trade (also known as kirana retail), he was very excited and confident about seeing his masalas across thousands of retail shelves in India. He had the necessary financial firepower, a stellar on-ground sales team and even an SFA solution to digitise and automate sales processes. But despite all this, the actual reality of managing kirana distribution turned out to be very different from what he had anticipated. 

“For two years, we worked on cracking the GT market. We expanded to 20 states but

eventually realised that GT was a costly affair. Finally, when COVID struck in 2020, we had to let go of our entire sales team of 350,” he rued.

It was the worst of times. The startup was bootstrapped then. The founders had already

invested INR 60 Cr to set up the plant. They also burnt INR 30 Cr while trying to master GT

operations. And now they had no sales team to bring them business. There was no way out but to opt for ecommerce.

Akash’s story isn’t unique. It’s a cautionary tale for many digital-first brands who see GT as the next growth frontier but often underestimate its complexities. Then why does GT continue to be so irresistible for D2C brands? 

Why is General Trade considered the Holy Grail for D2C Brands?

13 million opportunities. That’s why.

In India, there are approximately 13 million kirana stores today, with over 10 million located in Tier II and smaller cities, that form the neural network of India’s consumer economy. Based on Deloitte's Future of Retail study, India is set to add 110 million middle-income households (currently 190 million) and 14 million high-income households (currently 15 million) by 2030. Tier II and III cities are now emerging as significant growth catalysts for the FMCG sector, but still remain under-served. So despite the noise around quick commerce and ecommerce, the next level of growth unlocking can only happen with kirana retail.

For D2C brands, this untapped potential in kirana retail or GT (General Trade) is why they think GT is the Holy Grail. Kirana retail is the only way for any FMCG company to build sizable volume, reach and profitability. We’ve all seen the meteoric rise of Mamaearth, an online baby and personal products brand that successfully entered- and conquered- kirana retail. None of the other D2C brands, or even the much-established FMCG giants could have predicted that a company with niche products (and therefore a limited target market) would one day become a unicorn! Today, offline retail contributes to about 35% Mamaearth’s overall sales and was central to their aggressive scale up. Their journey to unicorn status with a successful IPO was the success story that spurred digital-first brands to start their own GT journeys. “If Mamaearth can do it, so can we.” 

But this is where it starts getting a little tricky. The transition from selling online to selling offline is like moving from a 100-metre dash to a 42-kilometre marathon. You are still running, but everything else is different – how you pace yourself, how you breathe, how you move, when you conserve your energy and when you put everything into running past the competition. It’s the same in selling offline. Unlike online channels, GT takes time to mature, and for results to start showing. As a retail analyst recently noted, “In physical retail, it is easy to push inventory and show a topline, but long term indicators of business are crucial. In FMCG categories like Mamaearth, results manifest in 18-24 months. “

So if D2C brands expect GT to work the same way online channels do, they are in for a surprise. Here are some of the obstacles that D2C brands can expect to face when they begin their journey in Kirana Retail:

The Top 5 Unique Challenges D2C Brands Face in General Trade 

1. Capital does not equal speed

If you look at online marketing and selling, money often translates to results. For e.g.  if you increase your Facebook and Instagram ad spend, you’ll see an immediate spike in conversions. General trade, however, plays by an entirely different rulebook. Even with a ₹100 crore war chest, the journey is slower and far more capital-intensive. Building a distribution network, hiring the right sales team, and onboarding reliable distributors is complex and involves a long gestation period, as it is this investment in relationships and processes that will shape your brand’s offline presence for years to come.

This is where Kirana tech solutions can make a difference. An online marketplace like Badho simplifies this complexity with its plug-and-play approach. Brands can engage directly with retailers, and launch new products seamlessly, cutting through the traditional bottlenecks. By minimizing gestation periods, Badho translates spends into execution, transforming General Trade from a slow grind into a strategic growth accelerator.

2. The customer is no longer your customer

One of the biggest challenges D2C brands face in offline retail is the shift in their customer base. Online, the end-user is the customer, and D2C brands engage directly with them through personalized marketing, feedback loops, and direct communication. However, in offline retail, the customer is no longer the end-user, it’s the retailer. Winning in GT requires  a mindset pivot. 

For e.g. D2C transactions are instant between the brand and the end-customers, but retailers don’t work that way. They expect a line of credit from the brand. However, retailers themselves don’t allow their customers any credit, which is why a kirana store owner rarely accepts credit cards. That approx. 1.5% margin (that he loses as processing fee) is a big deal for them especially when they make only 5-10% margins on products depending on the category.  Retailers don’t just want great products; they want dependable supply, attractive margins, clear communication, ongoing engagement and support to move inventory quickly.  

Badho empowers brands to engage effectively with their new customers - the retailers. With tools to promote schemes, drive loyalty programs, and provide real-time updates on orders and inventory, Badho ensures that retailers remain invested in the brand’s success. Badho makes it easy for brands to stay connected, build trust, resolve issues swiftly and ensure long-term partnerships that take the brand from 0 to 10, and then 10 to 100.

3. Kirana retail needs relationship builders, not performance marketeers

Online B2C marketplaces like Flipkart, Amazon, Myntra, Tira etc work great for D2C brands because they generate mountains of data - conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, and drilled down analytics. This makes it easier for the brand to tweak their selling strategy for each line of product. But GT operates on a completely different plane. Every retailer is a relationship not a statistic, and it is this relationship that defines whether a brand will be on their shelves or not . That means if you are a D2C brand, you will have to invest in creating millions of relationships across the country to make sure your products are stocked by them. But how do you know that all those retailers cater to your target segment? What if they don’t? Do you even have the requisite on-ground resources, or frankly, the time to do this exercise?  

Online platforms like  Badho can be a big help here. With Badho, D2C brands can access a curated network of distributors and retailers, bypassing the need for extensive relationship-building efforts. Badho ensures brands can focus on scaling, while they handle the groundwork.

4. Kirana retail is a Data Desert

D2C brands are used to tracking every click and purchase behaviour of consumers online. But one of the main characteristics of GT is that this data (directly from consumers) is unavailable because brands do not have direct access to the end-consumer (unless they are doing in-store sampling or other customer-facing activities).  Consumer behaviour is deduced from the secondary sales and primary sales patterns. This is why the biggest grouse that D2C brands have is that kirana retail is a “Data Desert” because they are constantly struggling to understand what’s happening on the ground, or what the consumer really wants. 

Specialist kirana-tech marketplaces bridge this gap by providing real-time insights into brand performance at the retail level. From inventory visibility to sales analytics, a platform like Badho gives D2C brands the tools to make data-driven decisions for a more impactful and targeted GTM strategy.

5. D2R (Direct to Retailer) model

Most D2C brands begin with a Direct-to-Retailer (D2R) model to fulfil orders directly from their warehouses, completely negating the need for having a distributor network. But that also means that end-customers have to wait 2-3 days to get their orders. While this works well in e-commerce, entering General Trade poses a challenge- how to efficiently manage order fulfilment so that when a customer asks for a product, the retailer doesn’t have to say, “Aaj nahi kai, doosra brand le jao.”  

Badho supports a hybrid D2R model that is specially tailored for General Trade. 

• Direct Fulfilment: For orders received from areas that do not have an established distributor network, brands can fulfil orders directly. 

• Distributor-led Fulfilment: In high demand areas, brands can onboard local distributors (sourced via Badho app) to enable same-day deliveries to the retailers. 

A hybrid model like this allows D2C brands to maintain delivery control as well as delivery speed. They can quickly enter newer markets via direct shipping and gradually build a distributor network based on actual demand. 

Badho allows brands to manage orders dynamically, engage with retailers directly, and never miss a sales opportunity again.

Finding Success in the Kirana Retail’s ‘Neural Network’ with Badho

India’s consumer economy runs on the backbone of 13 million kirana and mom-and-pop stores. They are the lifeblood of GT, and for D2C brands, they represent unparalleled opportunities for growth.  It took Akash Agrawalla, Founder of Zoff Spices a little time to understand and find success in GT, but now that he has, there is no looking back.

“What is fascinating is that earlier, our Sales Officers used to spend most of their time introducing Zoff Spices to retailers. Today, they walk into stores and retailers already know us from the Badho app. That's a game-changer! Instead of explaining who we are, our teams can focus on actually closing sales. I have to be honest, we completely underestimated how tech-savvy the kirana ecosystem could be. Badho showed us how to maximise our ROI. With it we have been able to easily onboard the right distributors and partner directly with retailers. So if you as a brand are willing to understand and respect this retail network, invest time in it and use the right digital tools to engage with it, it repays you exponentially."

It is not for nothing that general trade is called the Godfather of Indian Retail. At Badho, we give D2C brands the foundation to quickly scale their retailer and distribution network. From real-time insights to relationship-building tools, Badho helps D2C brands build and accelerate their GT journey  the way they want it.  

It’s time to stop treating GT as an afterthought. With Badho, let’s get your D2C brand off to a flying start in the enormous sky called kirana retail.