Udaan forged tie-ups with more than 2,500 brands in midst of Covid

Business-to-business (B2B) ecommerce platform Udaan has forged partnerships with more than 2,500 brands, one-fourth of which were onboarded amid the Covid-19 pandemic, a top executive said.

This indicates how brands across the country are leaning on ecommerce as a mainstream channel of distribution after the virus hurt supply chains and restricted travel.

HUL, P&G, ITC, Dabur, Haldirams, Karbonn, Micromax, boAt, Biba, Adidas, Relaxo, Pigeon and Apple have used Udaan's distribution network to list 500,000 items and access more than 3 million retailers on the platform -- accelerating quarterly growth by 60%, Vaibhav Gupta, cofounder of Udaan, said.


Udaan connects manufacturers and brands with small retailers across three categories - food (staples and fresh vegetables), non-food (electronics and fashion), and pharmaceuticals.

It has an everyday delivery cycle across 900 cities covering more than 12,000 pin codes.

“Brands are partnering... for the cost benefits that accrue to them as a result of better reach, scale, expansion to new markets, convenience of product launches and testing of new products in different markets," Gupta said.

Investors said Udaan's Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) has increased to $500 million in the third quarter from $300 million in the second.

The virus outbreak has accelerated the willingness of small businesses and brands to use technology to scale up operations, opening up a market that had in the past viewed technology companies as competitors.

“We intend to widen both our brand and product portfolios with Udaan in the coming future and will continue to strengthen our current offerings and partnership alignment," said Anurag Singhal, director, Jaina Group, which owns the Karbonn mobile phones brand.

Flipkart, Amazon, Reliance, among others, are looking to leverage their scale and distribution to tap into this newly opened segment.

Udaan raised $585 million last year from Altimeter Capital, Tencent, Hillhouse Capital, GGV Capital and Citibank along with existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and DST Global.

Beyond supply chain, payments and credit capabilities, Udaan also provides marketing support and real-time analytics to both retailers and brands to enable them to make decisions about product launches and testing of new products in various markets.

Indian retail is set to grow from $1 trillion to $1.3 trillion by fiscal year 2025. Unorganized retail, which is Udaan's target segment, will be a dominant category, even as its share will go down slightly from 84% to 77% in the next five years, according to a report by Redseer.

In FMCG and grocery, their contribution will continue to almost be 90%, the report said, adding that organized retail, online and offline, was poised to grow from 16% to 22%.

The current channels for trade in India have multiple pain points, including pricing opaqueness, delivery inefficiency, limited access to goods, as well as lower access to capital which affect both buyers and sellers.

Udaan said it was collaborating with external lenders to further scale its lending business, instead of deploying capital solely from its own books.