StoreKing : Sridhar Gundaiah is connecting rural India to the Digital World of Online Shopping

On a scale of looking our self as a global economy, the gap that exists between urban and rural India is more wider than we think. The rural India is still having limited access to even the most basic amenities and products while the urban India is relishing the comfort of smart cities and state-of-art services. Lack of logistics services, language barriers and poor connectivity is playing a big role in creating this gap.

While close to 70% of the country’s population still resides at a rural pincode almost no e-commerce company could reach them a couple of years back, even though many of them may have had similar purchasing power as those in big cities. To extend the benefits of retail and new-retail brought by these e-commerce companies, Sridhar Gundaiah, who himself hails from a village in Karnataka decided to tap on the mammoth rural market potential.

It’s been more than a decade since the first wave of startups  cropped up in the country,  the base for which  started with the e-commerce boom with the likes of E-Bay, Flipkart and Snapdeal  giving impetus to a whole new industry. And although the business of startups in India has largely thrived on B2C models, very few have been able to rope in the rural population into their customer base.

While close to 70% of the country’s population still resides at a rural pincode almost no e-commerce company could reach them a couple of years back, even though many of them may have had similar purchasing power as those in big cities. To extend the benefits of retail and new-retail brought by these e-commerce companies, Sridhar Gundaiah, who himself hails from a village in Karnataka decided to tap on the mammoth rural market potential.

StoreKing’s effort to power the economy and digitize  rural regions has led their sales to rise close to $300 million annually. But their business requires them to constantly innovate and come up with non-linear models of scaling up operations as they grow their presence across different geographies. “One of the challenges is to educate the customer and retailers about our new offerings – especially with regards to the new age payments and financial services solutions. We are solving this by means of technology, using various mediums such as videos, chat, etc., thereby reducing the dependence on our feet on street,” Sridhar says.

StoreKing takes pride in introducing new digital products such as UPI payments and mobile wallets to help customers complete digital payments. It aspires to be India’s largest distribution platform, reaching out to 70 percent of India’s population and a network of half a million retailers by 2022. The startup is also on its way to becoming India's largest rural fin-tech company, with over INR. 22 crore MSME loans being disbursed to rural retailers through their partners. “ We are aiming at providing close to INR. 1500 crore to retailers in the next 18-24 months,” Sridhar explains.