A faint hint of the twilight sun is visible on Mohanan’s face as he sits staring at his mobile screen in front of his shop located a stone’s throw away from the Thamalam level crossing in Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala. Residents walk by, but there is no anticipation in his eyes that one of them would turn to his shop to pick something essential for home.
“You can see for yourself. It’s all gone,” says the 62-year-old man, pointing at the shelves with various items arranged haphazardly around, when asked about how his sales have been going.
He has sat at this shop for over 50 years now, from the time his father opened it in the neighbourhood in which Mohanan has lived all his life.
“It’s all the more sad because I have seen better days in the past. Even five or six years ago, I used to have sales of ₹3,000-₹5,000 daily. Now I hardly manage to have sales of even ₹300 on most days. I stocked a sack of rice about a month ago, but I haven’t sold even half a kilogram of it. Why would anyone come here when they can have it all delivered home? I just come and sit here every morning because it has become a habit. Before long, I will need to shut shop and find some other job, maybe as security staff somewhere. That will pay more,” rues Mohanan.
Mohanan’s plight is not an aberration but part of a pattern that has been playing out across neighbourhoods in Kerala as well as across the country as quick-commerce platforms and corporate-backed large retail stores spread their wings and penetrate smaller urban centres and even rural areas.
Though early players in the quick-commerce scene began their operations in Kerala in a limited, experimental manner in cities like Kochi about five years ago, the major expansion happened over the past two years. Currently, Swiggy, Instamart, Blinkit, Big Basket, JioMart and Zepto all have operations in the State. With the promise of quick doorstep delivery and attractive prices, these platforms are an appealing proposition for consumers, while many youths have also found employment as delivery partners. Parallelly, major retail chains, including Reliance, have expanded rapidly across towns and rural centres in the State.
From a consumer’s perspective, all this makes for a rosy picture, but a walk along the commercial areas as well as neighbourhoods reveals the plight of those who have been struggling to cope in the digital era. The effect has been felt even by relatively large traders who have had flourishing businesses for decades, like the 59-year-old K. Unnikrishnan, whose family has been running Kumar Store in Neyyattinkara for 70 years.
Padmakumar, proprietor of an old grocery shop in Poovachal village in Thiruvananthapuram, is checking the store which he has gradually converted into a fertilizer depot. | Photo Credit: Nirmal Harindran
“Earlier, on the first of every month, we used to have sales of over ₹50,000 and average sales of ₹25,000 during the rest of the month. Now, the first-of-the-month sale has come down to ₹10,000 and the average sales to ₹5,000,” says Unnikrishnan.
“We used to have five sales staff and one cashier. Now there is just me and another person. Both quick-commerce firms and big supermarkets have affected us, as we cannot afford to give the kind of deep discounts they provide. I don’t plan to take any more risks or loans to improve the business as I don’t have much hope of beating this downturn,” he says.
The change happening now is not something which any of them could have foreseen even a decade ago. The Kerala Vyapari Vyavasayi Ekopana Samiti (KVVES), the traders’ body which has for some time been voicing concerns over the predatory pricing mechanisms of quick-commerce as well as big retail chains, has been sensing this shift in its dwindling membership numbers.
According to Babu Kottayil, vice-president, KVVES, on average 20-30% of various trade businesses get closed down every year across Kerala in recent years, while 10-15% of new ones get opened annually, with a net drop of 10-15% in the number of such businesses. A good number of the new businesses are restaurants or cafes.
Unnikrishnan, proprietor of Kumar Stores grocery shop in Neyyattinkara town in Thiruvananthapuram, checking the empty old racks at his store. | Photo Credit: Nirmal Harindran
“A lot of factors are at play, including quick-commerce platforms and big supermarket chains. Both of these have penetrated even the smallest towns. Smaller traders are now moving away from business at a much faster rate. Big corporate players, who dictate the competition, are now present in every field, be it provisions, electronics or garments. Since they fix the prices, the margins for small-scale traders drop drastically, pushing them into a debt trap,” observes Babu.
Large “dark stores”, the name given to the godowns used by quick-commerce applications in various neighbourhoods to ensure superfast delivery, have now popped up even in rural areas. With no display boards outside, the only clue about their presence is the large number of delivery agents on two-wheelers milling about in the vicinity. Since their stocks are hardly ever from the local markets and are sourced through large supply chains, the local producers or traders don’t stand to benefit from their massive growth.
An 84-year-old Gopi, who runs Sree Panchami Variety Stores at Chiramukku in Thiruvananthapuram, says that the dwindling sales; the high rentals, trade licence fee, power bills and food safety licence fees for even selling snack packets; have made the whole business unsustainable. “There are a few who order online or shop from supermarkets in the early half of the month and come to me to get things on credit towards the end of the month,” he says ruefully.
The KVVES has in the past tried to overcome the challenges posed by larger chains and online commerce by various experiments, including a unified purchasing model for all shops in a particular area, but these attempts have failed.
“During the initial days of the proliferation of the online platforms, the samiti had thought of initiatives, but we realised that these needed huge investment and were mostly impractical. The unified purchase model was tried out in some districts, but many traders did not cooperate with it. Home appliance traders have a collective for bulk purchase,” observes Peringamala Ramachandran, a former office-bearer of the KVVES.
“Strategic discussions are under way among traders on how the prices can be reduced. Since all of them procure from wholesalers, they cannot sell without taking a minimum profit, unlike the bigger chains or supermarkets that buy directly from the companies at a lower rate,” says Ramachandran.
Smaller traders who have shifted to new businesses in recent years are also feeling the pinch, for instance, the owners of smaller mobile shops.
“Online sales as well as bigger chain outlets have cut into our business. Now customers approach us mostly for accessories or for service and not to purchase new mobiles,” says Mohammed Shafi, who runs a mobile shop at Valanchery in Malappuram district.
Local fish vendors are another category whose businesses have dropped due to the online shift. Added to the challenges posed by online fresh fish delivery services as well as supermarkets are the restrictions on their entry to many flat complexes. “Many of the long-time vendors are either jobless or shifting to other jobs,” says Pulluvila Stanley, general secretary of the All India Fishers and Fisheries Workers’ Federation.
The All India Consumer Products Distributors Federation had two years ago lodged a complaint against quick-commerce platforms with the Competition Commission of India. According to Dhairyashil Patil, national president of the federation, nothing much has happened over the complaint which highlighted some of the major issues due to quick commerce.
“We had made substantial points regarding the deep discounting and predatory pricing in the market by the quick-commerce platforms. Supportive documents and bills were given, especially on how they were manipulating prices. The products available in the general market and those provided through these platforms often have different weights. So the discounts that the customers get are mostly perceived and not actual. The commission did not take any action on it. Right now, it is an alarming situation and could get worse,” cautions Patil.
Amid all the gloomy tales of struggle for survival in a digital age, the story of how the local cable operators in Kerala managed to stay afloat may have lessons for other sectors too.
Back in 2007, around the time the winds of digitisation began to blow across the cable television sector, local cable TV operators across Kerala under the aegis of the Cable TV Operators Association formed Kerala Communicators Cable Limited. The company had the structure of a cooperative with the local cable TV operators as shareholders with shares in profits. The company launched digital cable TV services under the brand name of Kerala Vision. In 2015, it launched broadband services and in the post-COVID years, Over-The-Top (OTT) platforms as a bundled service. Currently, over 6,000 local cable operators across Kerala are part of the initiative.
This model is particularly interesting because the local cable operators have been slowly shutting shop across the country amid the launch of operations by corporates as well as the proliferation of the OTT platforms. A study conducted by the All India Digital Cable Federation in 2025 estimated job losses in the sector at 5.77 lakh since 2018, owing to the closure of 72,000 local cable operators and 900 Multiple System Operators.
“We couldn’t have survived in the digital era if we had not stood united. Since all the local operators are shareholders, they get a share of the profits. We now have an understanding with major streaming platforms such as Hotstar to provide their services bundled with ours. In the past two years, around 10% of the subscribers have given up their set-top box cable connection for broadband. But we are well set to meet the challenge,” says K. Vijayakrishnan, executive committee member of the association.
Published - July 09, 2026 10:22 pm IST