StoreKing was conceived with a simple yet powerful idea in mind – to power rural consumption and redraw the distribution capabilities for both products and services using Kirana as an Anchor. It is the only rural retail ecosystem that connects both retail suppliers and financial institutions to the vast rural population. Through end-to-end technology management, StoreKing powers the local Kirana stores to meet all the retail needs of their rural buyers.
Rural consumers currently constitute about 200 million households across India. As their disposable income levels grow and the penetration of the Internet leads to more mobile consumption, their tastes increasingly mirror those of their urban counterparts and they aspire to buy from the same brands. In fact, in 2018, rural India accounted for $484 billion of retail sales, as opposed to $396 billion in urban India – a number only expected to rise as consumption demand goes up in small villages and towns. There is, undoubtedly, a compelling reason for eCommerce brands to invest in catering to this new population of savvy rural buyers.
At the same time, however, the big eCommerce and payment brands continue to serve mostly urban customers. This is primarily because of a broken rural distribution network where large-format stores do not exist and keeping Kirana stores well-stocked with branded products is difficult. The lack of a systematic network, moreover, prevents brands from capturing relevant customer data catering to what their customers actually want, forcing rural buyers to make do with only a handful of generic product offerings in the Kirana stores. On average, rural buyers need to travel more than 20 kilometers to the nearest city to make bigger purchases.
Through its tech-enabled distribution platform, StoreKing overcomes these engagement barriers for rural consumers by helping local retailers leverage technology and fully tap their market potential. As a friendly neighborhood store that understands local preferences and speaks the local language, the Kirana is a powerful way to connect with rural customers and understand their unique preferences and challenges, which is precisely what StoreKing aims to do.
StoreKing offers a user-friendly technology platform that connects each rural Kirana directly with the brand seeking to supply its products, enabling the brand and the Kirana to work together to devise data-guided product and sales strategies. A clean and simple interface enables rural retailers to procure products and services for their customers through the StoreKing app as needed, rather than having to repeatedly travel and pick up stocks themselves. The platform is designed on the following four pillars:
Logistics – The platform offers a tech-managed, asset-light distribution network of kiranas and connecting logistics nodes. The network consolidates touchpoints in rural markets and enables stores to stay well-stocked on a daily basis.
Payments – StoreKing provides a unique resourceful approach to digitize the rural cash economy. All transactions on the platform are prepaid.
Marketing– Rural consumers are engaged via multiple mediums, exposing them to new brands and lifestyle choices.
Technology – StoreKing provides a complete app ecosystem to target and manage customers.
The other component of StoreKing’s offerings relates to financial assistance. It provides secured and unsecured loans, insurance, branchless banking, savings, and wealth management to rural retailers based on their order history and performance. HDFC Bank, Muthoot Fincorp, Hero FinCorp, have all partnered with StoreKing to enable this.
Role played by StoreKing during Lockdown
When the Covid-19 lockdown hit in March 2020, an already fragmented rural distribution and logistics network was brought to a grinding halt. At the same time, the influx of locals returning from their urban jobs spiked local demand, for which the kiranas had neither the inventory nor the manpower (owing to social distancing). With a view to empowering kiranas to make it through these challenging times, StoreKing successfully obtained all the necessary permits to continue operations during the lockdown. In addition to regularly sanitizing their warehouses and training all their staff members and partners about safety protocol, senior StoreKing members worked with kiranas to accelerate their digital growth and help them operate as self-sufficient entities.
In the initial weeks of the lockdown alone, StoreKing serviced over 10,000 kiranas, delivered two million kilograms of supplies, and operated over 700 trucks to fulfill deliveries. They also ensured that the truck operators were well-supplied with meals to help them power through long distances and all-night assignments.
StoreKing was launched in 2012 with a seed investment from Mangrove Capital and is headquartered in Bangalore. At present, it has a run-rate of Rs 500 crore in products and about 500 crores in Services with over 1000 super franchises and 25000+ franchisees. The team comprises 250+ members spanning eight states, i.e. Karnataka, Kerala, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra & Gujarat. The platform currently empowers over 22,000+ Kirana stores in rural India to become assisted touchpoints while driving transactions of walk-in consumers. Some of their prominent retail partners include Hindustan Unilever, Wipro, Dabur, Godrej, Marico, Reckitt Benckiser, ITC, Himalaya & many more. Their vision is to be the one-stop digital hub for rural India, catering to 70% of the country’s demand in an accessible, customer-first fashion.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Boonbox.
The advent of e-commerce in India in the past decade has been unprecedented. While a huge chunk of the population in Indian cities are reaping the benefits of e-commerce, the rural areas still remain untouched by the effects of digitization.
With the masterly vision of taking e-commerce to rural India, the co-founders-Ramachandran Ramanathan, Karthik Natarajan, Narayanan launched Boonbox in 2013.
Given the great idea and insight on which this startup is based, this is how the business functions. Boonbox has a local affiliate in each of the towns/villages that they are located in. These local affiliates assist the consumers with the products available in the application. These affiliates place the orders on the consumer’s behalf and collect the money. These products are delivered by Boonbox through their hub & spoke fulfillment model.
In rural areas, there can’t be a platform to start a business as the ecosystem does not exist. Boonbox is an integrated player in this ecosystem. It owns the ecosystem and this is difficult to replicate. Creating connectivity takes time and requires a deep understanding of rural purchase patterns and consumer behavior. And Boonbox team has decades of experience in building rural networks.
The rural ecosystem has a lot of human elements associated with it. There is touch and feel of human connectivity. To be a successful startup in rural India, the required building blocks are human touch, credibility & trust, accompanied by an integrated ecosystem. As Boonbox has been able to selectively identify the relevant trust elements within rural communities and has built them over the years, this platform is viewed as a trusted element in the rural ecosystems. Boonbox pivoted from being a single product seller to a multi-category catalog that empowers the rural customers with choice and convenience. The venture was pivoted in the year 2015.
Boonbox is a technology platform for providing products and services to consumers who live in tier-4 towns and villages and are deprived of access to these products. Through the company’s “Rural Last Mile” logistics network, products are delivered at the doorstep of the consumers in remote villages. Boonbox also ensures that regular follow-up takes place with the customers, and promises them after-sale service to provide a top-class purchase experience.
Boonbox – USP
Boonbox chennai based startup, is an unique venture that aggregates the demand of rural customers and fulfills them by placing an order with the merchant. In simple words, it’s a vehicle to enter the rural markets. The main idea of the startup is to be a desired brand for every rural household and be a part of their everyday lives. Also, Boonbox is of the ideology that every rural customer craves and deserves a top-class customer experience. With Boonbox online shopping has never been easier for the rural population!
Boonbox was selling solar lamps in Rural Tamil Nadu and Karnataka during the peak power crisis in 2012-13. While seeking customer feedback, the Boonbox team received responses that indicated demand for Mobile Phones, White Goods (TV, Fridge, Washing Machine) and also Induction Stoves and Mixer Grinders. All these products were wanted by rural consumers during the peak power crisis. Thus, throughout the entrepreneurial journey, seeking customer feedback helped them deduce that Rural Customers are ASPIRATIONAL and CONSUMPTION is driving the Rural Economy.
70 % of India which is close to a billion people live in Rural India. Rural India contributes to 47% of the country’s GDP. And these statistics were sufficient enough to indicate a massive market in a less than 30,000 population towns. These people in those towns were the target market of Boonbox.
” We foresee a consumption explosion in Rural India and expect Rural India to lead India’s economy in the next 5 years.” said the Co-founders of Boonbox positively.
Boonbox – Founders and team
Ramachandran Ramanthan, Karthik Natarajan and Narayanan are the Co-founders of Boonbox.
Ramachandran Ramanthan, Karthik Natarajan and Narayanan
The trio has an exciting story about how all of it began! While Ramachandran Ramanathan and Karthik Natarajan were colleagues, they met Narayanan through a common friend. Narayanan had created the rural network in Tamil Nadu for Tata Teleservices and immediately caught on to the potential of the idea. The co-founders then went on to build the team by selling a dream, which made many people leave their lucrative jobs in the corporate world to join in the Boonbox adventure. The fact that they were working in an exotic area, a white space, building for Bharat and also generating cash in the business, attracted many people to the Boonbox team.
Ramachandran Ramanathan is a Chartered Accountant by qualification. He has also held senior management positions in the RPG, ICICI and TVS groups. Boonbox adventure is a great opportunity for him to follow his passion i.e., to create business strategies in uncharted markets and build a great team for scaling the business.
Boonbox co-founder Ramachandran Ramanthan
Karthik Natarajan is a management graduate from a financial services background with stints at Citigroup and Fullerton. Karthik is the ‘Zero to One’ man in the co-founder circle and his strength is his excellent ability to smell business opportunities and develop concepts into businesses.
Narayanan is also a management graduate who worked extensively in the telecom world straddling all the major brands including Airtel and Tata Teleservices. A meticulous planner, he works on business excellence and takes the Boonbox businesses to scale.
How was Boonbox Started
The idea to take on the rural markets with a technology platform struck to the co-founders Ramachandran Ramanathan and Karthik Natarajan when they were working on the TVS group. TVS’s consumer strategy was architected by the late Dr.C.K.Prahalad and focused entirely on capturing the rural markets. These two co-founders were working on creating alternate networks in rural markets and while doing that, the massive potential of this white space dawned upon them.
Boonbox was built based on these two co-founder’s experiences in the rural market. In fact, they did not do any formal market research. Instead, they focused on using customer feedback as a mechanism to drive Boonbox to success.
Boonbox – Name, Tagline and Logo
Specialists were consulted to come up with the name Boonbox. The co-founders finally zoomed in on Inthree which is a Coined Name – coined from the ethos of the business which is the Inner India Initiative. Inthree is the registered name and BoonBox is its customer-facing platform. So Ideally the Boonbox company is a sister concern of Inthree and is launched in select districts of TamilNadu and Karnataka. Which is why the Boonbox website can be accessed from inthreeaccess.com.
Boonbox Logo
Boonbox – Business Model and Revenue Model
The Boonbox business model is simple, it takes orders from rural customers and delivers products to their households. Considering that the rural market has a broken ecosystem and a virtually non-existent distribution network, this venture gets both the distributor and retailer’s margins which makes Boonbox’s Unit Economics very strong.
Rural India is characterized by a huge trust deficit. Boonbox has sold products to 2.5 million customers to date. Their focus is mainly on customer experience and to ensure that every single customer complaint is addressed on time and they now have 2.5 million happy customers. The rural market works on word of mouth marketing and Boonbox is a formidable brand now. Hence the key strategy for Boonbox has been to focus on customer experience since the initial days.
Boonbox – Startup Challenges
Rural is a white space, the founders had no benchmarks to follow. The company’s business model was formulated after multiple iterations and is not more than three years old. The model is based on continuous learning and building on the co-founder’s experiences. Also, It is not something that others can replicate over a short period. Boonbox is consistently working towards solving two major challenges :
Gaining the trust of consumers living in towns and villages with a population of 30,000 and below
Catering to customers who live in locations without a proper address or pin code. In such areas, it’s important to ensure that products reach customers on time.
This venture is the pioneer in this field and the co-founders are continuously trying their experiments and learning from them. There have been as many failed experiments as successful ones, as the business itself is one huge hack!
Though Boonbox does not have any direct competition in the market. But unicorns like Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon have been trying to get inroads in rural markets, some e-commerce startups like iPay and StoreKing solely focus on rural markets.
Boonbox – Funding and Investors
Boonbox has raised a total funding worth INR 34 Crores in two rounds till date.
Date
Stage
Amount
Investors
August, 2014
Angel
9 Crores
IAN, Keiretsu Forum Chennai
August, 2018
Series A
25 crores
Ventureast, Orios & IAN Fund
Boonbox – Advisors and Mentors
Boonbox does have mentors who have contributed their ideas in Business Strategy, Customer Experience and HR throughout the entrepreneurial journey.
Boonbox operates in 16 States. This includes acquiring customers and delivering products to 3,00,000 villages which accounts for 47% of India’s universe of villages. Since inception and till date, Boonbox has sold products in rural markets totaling to INR 450 Crores.
Boonbox is the largest rural partner for Samsung mobiles and has been the largest partner for them for the last three consecutive years. Some of the other products and brands include:
The Co-founders are expecting to close 2019 with a turnover of INR 300 Crores, and with a Gross Profit of INR 75 Crores. They are expecting to reach a turnover of INR 1,000 Crores by 2022.
The long-term plan of the venture is to be a pan India player, providing products at customer’s doorstep in remote villages and that too backed by top-notch customer experience. Given that the following are the goals for the coming decade:
Become a multi-service offering for the rural consumer
Building a robust direct channel for selling to the consumer with a fintech offering
Adding categories like FMCG, fashion, apparel to the product mix in addition to mobile phones, consumer durables, kitchen appliances, and cookware
Designing subscription models that can be relevant for the rural consumer
Creating loyalty and membership programs to build long term value for customers
There’s ideally nothing better than growing together. Boonbox’s initiative of empowering rural India with the services that they deserve is a marvelous concept. After all, great businesses are always built out of satisfying needs rather than creating wants.
Frequently Asked Questions – FAQs
Who are the Founders of Boonbox?
The Co-founders of Boonbox are Ramachandran Ramanthan, Karthik Natarajan and Narayanan.
What is Boonbox?
Boonbox is an unique venture that aggregates the demand of rural customers and fulfills them by placing an order with the merchant on their behalf and delivers it to the individuals.
Is Boonbox only available in Chennai?
No, Boonbox operates in 16 States including Chennai and are planning on expanding further.
Devashish Shrivastava
