Shillong, Jul 9: Blinkit would be absolutely ruinous to small shops and traders in Shillong as the latter would be unable to compete with the quick-commerce giant that has national scale to back it up.
A number of individuals from the trading community held a press conference today where they warned against allowing Blinkit to operate in the city.
The company, owned by the same owners of Zomato, was denied a licence to operate by the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council (KHADC), which feared that Blinkit would put many locals out of business.
Some have argued in favour of the company, such as the Dorbar Shnong of Nongrim Hills. Last week its members said that the company would offer consumers lower prices while also providing jobs to delivery personnel.
Pushing back, Samran S Syiem of the traders’ lobby said today that Blinkit uses predatory pricing to undercut competitors in order to gain market share and is quite prepared to operate at a loss in order to get customers onboard.
On the other side, neighbourhood shopkeepers in Shillong do not have the power or the investment to compete with Blinkit. “We cannot offer the same price that Blinkit is offering nor can we offer free delivery,” Syiem added.
He contrasted Blinkit’s model with that of others like hotel booking companies Oyo, Booking.com and Agoda, which partner with local businesses rather than competing with them directly.
“They don’t exploit the local businesses. Instead they help them to grow and reach more customers, guests and increase their sales and revenue within their business,” he added.
Blinkit, on the other hand, runs small warehouses around the cities it operates in stocked with in-demand goods. This allows its own personnel to fulfil orders quickly (it advertises 10 minutes in big metros). The scale of the business also allows it to negotiate lower prices on the goods it offers with suppliers, something that small independent shops cannot do.
Syiem said that the question that needs to be asked to those who are in favour of Blinkit is whether they want neighbourhood shops to completely vanish thereby “killing off generational employment because of a 10-minute convenience.”
Syiem said that they want Blinkit to adapt a business model that respects local stores, which would involve changing its approach completely.
Meanwhile, Andrew Nongkynrih, another member of the traders’ group, recalled that last year, when Blinkit was allowed to operate in the city for three months, the trading community faced a lot of difficulties.
“Many of the shops reported a reduction of sales of about 40 to 50 percent and some 30-40 shops even had to close down,” Nongkynrih said.
He informed that after this the traders approached the KHADC’s executive committee and requested them to look into the matter, which eventually led to the closure of Blinkit in Shillong.
According to Nongkynrih, the presence of Blinkit will not only affect the approximately 4,000 shop owners but also distributors, wholesalers, employees and head load workers, drivers and their families, which contribute to about 20 percent of the population of Shillong.
