Digitizing the Corner Shop

The corner shop plays a vital role in neighborhoods across the globe. These millions of small stores, often independent and family-owned, are found on every street corner in local communities, ensuring neighborhood access to food and other essential household needs. Corner shops constitute a $900+ billion global industry and make up 90% of grocery sales in countries such as India and Egypt.

Corner shops are here to stay. Despite repeated predictions of the demise of the corner shop, our primary research across four emerging market countries indicates corner stores are here to stay and may become even more important to their communities. Across Brazil, Egypt, India, and Indonesia, 30% of consumers plan to buy more at their local corner shop, and 64% plan to continue to buy as much as they do today.

Flourish Ventures launched Digitizing the Corner Shop research in partnership with Bain & Company and 60 Decibels to better understand corner shops across the globe and share learnings on how tech entrepreneurs can better serve their needs. We surveyed more than 800 corner shop owners and 800 of their customers to learn firsthand about their business pain points, competitive threats, aspirations, and digital behaviors.