As India is coming out of the devastating second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic and as businesses look to safely re-open in most parts of the country, OkCredit has launched the #UdharAbhiBaakiHai digital campaign to help small and medium businesses recover from a severe cash crunch. This digital campaign urges/encourages customers, both big and small, to clear their pending dues to help small businesses and shopkeepers tide over the financial crunch.
The unorganised retail in India runs on credit. For buyers, it’s about convenience to buy whenever they want and for merchants it’s an effective customer retention tool.
#UdharAbhiBaakiHai campaign is built upon the premise that small and medium business owners/neighborhood kirana stores served as a pillar of support to masses during the Covid pandemic. They, despite fear of getting infected, went above and beyond to not only ensure a regular supply of daily essentials to communities but also provided credit to distressed families who suffered financial crunch due to loss of livelihood.
The campaign further conveys the message that neighbourhood kirana stores/small businesses have done their bit and it is now time to do our bit to support them through this liquidity crunch. It ends with a call to clear individual dues to small and medium business owners/neighborhood kirana stores through OkCredit as it can be a good way to begin changing this state of affairs and enable small retailers to serve us with the same vigor, energy, and dedication.
Sharing his thoughts on the campaign, Ayush Jain, Associate Director- Growth, OkCredit said, “ At a time when demand is down, small businesses had to bear the additional weight of outstanding credit on their books, affecting their cashflows and thus income. This was evident in the alarming decline in the number of transactions by small businesses on the OkCredit platform. #UdharAbhiBaakiHai campaign is an attempt by OkCredit to urge people to clear their pending due towards small business owners, local shop keepers, and the kirana stores to ease their financial stress.
Last year, the abrupt lockdown meant that businesses had huge outstanding credit, squeezing their cash flows and pushing them to bankruptcy. This year, however, because of pre- announcement of lockdown, businesses had time to prepare and the situation is slightly better.
According to leading market research firm Nielsen, there are around 12 million kirana stores and over 1 million wholesalers in India. These retailers, who have remained relevant in their neighborhood given familiarity and proximity factors, are facing the double whammy of stock unavailability post-lockdown and difficulty to source supplies from company distributors due to liquidity crunch.
Launched in Hindi, the #UdharAbhiBaakiHai campaign is available on OkCredit’s social network.