Sell to other shops, and let them apply to buy on credit
A new shop asks for a month's credit at the edge of your lane, and you have only a face to go by.
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What stands beside a shop's application at a banana, a jaggery and a dal wholesaler's
Sell to other businesses
The new fruit shop's owner and his cousin apply from a phone, and the banana wholesaler reads the application at the edge of the lane before saying yes.
Credit book (khata)
The shop you said yes to last month has a page in your account, where each handcart of bunches is a dated bill and the total is already added.
Godown stock
The jaggery trader keeps blocks in two godowns, and the count of each shows what the lorry brought in, so the shop that rings in is told which godown holds its blocks.
Bills on your phone
The bill for forty sacks of dal goes to the shop owner's WhatsApp from the lane, and the lorry is not held up for a paper.
Daily reports
At the end of the lane, the day's bills are read to see how many shops were served and how much went out.
A shop that applies, a wholesaler who decides
The cousin's friend applies, and the wholesaler reads the application
The new shopkeeper applies to buy from the banana wholesaler on credit, from his own phone. The wholesaler sees who is asking, for which shop, and decides after a word with the lane. If he says yes, the shop is a customer with a page, and the first bunches go out the next morning. A new shop is no longer a face across a handcart.
Every shop that rings in is already on the list
The shops the jaggery trader has said yes to are known by name and shop, not by voice. When one of them calls after the lorry comes in, the trader sees the page, and the account is written. A shop that has not applied is asked to do so.
The sales boy takes the wholesaler's own count to the shop
The dal wholesaler keeps his stock in his account, and the boy has the phone to look at it. When a shop asks for forty sacks, the boy tells him then and there whether the godown holds them. A shop that wants to buy on credit applies, and the wholesaler gives the yes.
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A cousin's reference in the banana lane, a jaggery lorry and a sales boy with a phone
A cousin's name is the whole reference
A banana wholesaler sells to fruit shops all over town. A new shopkeeper turns up at the edge of the lane with a cousin who knows someone. He asks for ten bunches a day on credit and says he will pay at the month's end. The wholesaler has only a face and a name to go on, and he says yes or no across a handcart. If the shop does not pay, the cousin cannot be found.
The jaggery lorry arrives and the shops ring in
A jaggery trader's lorry comes in, and the phone starts. Shop after shop asks him to put so many blocks on its account. He knows some of them by their voice and others not at all. By evening he cannot say which of the shops he promised and which he only heard from.
The sales boy who takes the order and cannot say what is in stock
A dal and rice wholesaler sends a boy to the shops with a phone. The shop owner says what he wants, and the boy writes it down, but he cannot say whether the godown holds it, or what the rate will be when the lorry comes. The shop's order is a hope until somebody at the godown looks.
Questions from wholesalers who already sell to shops on trust
A shop that has not rung for months rings in for a full lorry. Do I load it before I look at its page?
No. The lorry can wait the minute it takes to open that shop's page. Its last order and what it has paid since are there with their days. If the page is clear, load the lorry. If it is not, tell the shop the goods go when the page is clear.
Does the app collect the money from the shop at the month's end?
No. It keeps the shop's page, with the bills and the total. Collecting the money is done the way you do it now, by calling, sending someone or asking the shop to pay by UPI.
Is this the same as the B2B ordering network launched in Hyderabad?
No. That is a separate network. Here the shops that buy from you are the ones that have applied to you and that you have said yes to, and the bills and pages are in your own account.
I sell to shops in two towns. Can they all apply to me?
Yes. The shops that apply are your customers, wherever they are. Each one gets its own page in your account.
Can a shop buy from me for cash without applying?
Yes. A cash sale at your counter is a bill like any other. Applying is for the shops that want to buy on credit, and you answer each application yourself.
How do I know that the applying shop is real?
Ask around the lane and, if you want, go and see it, as you do now. The application tells you who is asking and for which shop. The yes or the no is your judgement.
The kirana trade seen from the wholesale lane, in three reports
More than 1.4 crore kirana stores account for nearly 75-80% of FMCG sales in India, Inc42 reported in 2026. Behind each of those stores is a wholesaler who decides whether to sell to it on credit. Each one of them is a possible customer of a wholesaler like those on this page.
Many kirana stores order through distributor sales representatives or phone calls, and often do not know the schemes on offer or when the delivery will come, Inc42 reported in 2026. When a shop applies to you, those are the two answers you owe it: what you can send, and the day the lorry reaches it.
DPIIT says over 10,000 retailers and 35 brands joined an ONDC-based B2B ordering network for kiranas after its March 2026 launch in Hyderabad. It is one more sign that shop-to-shop buying is moving onto the phone.