How to start a Grocery Store successfully in India?

Table of Content:

List of what must be checked to start a Grocery Store.
Frequently Asked Questions’ (faqs’)
How to Use Vyapar for Your Grocery Store In Simple Steps?

Looking to start a small scale business which guarantees good profits with a good number of customers? Then hurry!!! it is the perfect time to start a Grocery Store or an Indian Supermarket.

In India, with the population increase, the purchasing power of the population also increases. A small business idea to make good usage of the present market condition would be a Grocery Store

Here’s a list of what must be checked to start a Grocery Store:

1. GST Registration

If your annual turnover < 20 lakhs, get your grocery store or supermarket business GST registration done to obtain your 15 digit GST.
Most businesses avoid Non-GST companies as every transaction is documented and this can end up in tax violations. It is always better to stick to the tax rules made by the government to avoid any complications.

2. Legal Formalities

Obtain Food license, entity registration, shop, and establishment registration, to name a few.
As these are legal requirements, you will need to visit the license authority office to get the grocery store licenses for supermarket set up anywhere in India.

3. Perfect Location

It is vital to set your grocery store in the right place and there no doubt about it.
A preferred place to start your supermarket would be the center of the town or busy market complex, where the buying population is big in size.

4. Make your Store Attractive

Everybody likes to shop from a new age vibrant grocery store with products stacked neatly, with clear price tags and salesperson quick enough to help him out. Make sure you’re this kind of place!

5. Know your Customers

Learn more about who your customers are, their buying preference, their living standards, and market size. This will help you set up other things like the price of the products, dictates the kind of products to be kept at the store and other vital necessities to make your new business idea successful.

6. Check your Competition

See what competition you have around you. Lower the competition, the better it is.
Check out your competitors and see how your customers can think of your products when compared to your competitors.

7. Find good Vendor

Having a good network with vendors is a huge benefit when it comes to balancing your inventory right. For eg: You can easily return packed inventory if they’re not selling well.

8. Product Price

Set the right price for the product, which in turn influences the customer to buy more.
This has a direct effect on the revenue and profit margin of your grocery store.
Grocery stores traditionally have markups of 33% to 67% or margins of 25% to 40%.
Never offer very low prices as you would need to buy high inventory upfront. Instead, stress more on good service and convenience to your customers.

9. Hiring Sales Staff

This depends completely on the size and requirements of your store.
If at all you need to hire few, make sure they handle crowds of people with a smile on their faces.
Other requirements are a thorough knowledge of the inventory and well-trained and highly motivated personnel.

10. Online Store

Apart from having a physical grocery store, you can sell your grocery products online as well.
Take the help of the online marketplace to market your grocery store.
You will need an online website of your grocery shop, with an option of online payment through which you can take orders from consumers and get it delivered right to their doorstep. Or get listed on bigbasket.com and other such online platforms.

11. Advertise Well

Get noticed to draw maximum customers.
Inform your family members, relatives, community members, neighbours, and friends about your new business as word-of-mouth is the best way of advertising for your grocery store.
Build a good relationship with your customers, as a satisfied customer is your best advertisement.
Depending on your customer size and market, make a choice of advertising mediums like flyers, leaflets in newspapers, hoardings etc.

12. Be Digital Ready

Do not stick to the old and inefficient method of operating business. Do your small scale business in a smarter way. Managing billing, inventory, bookkeeping single-handedly or with a bunch of people is challenging and can result in a lot of manual work without the use of technology.
Consider a good business accounting software like Vyapar to help you run business, manage inventory and ease up accounting stuff. Most of the businessman out there use it to ease up their life.

Vyapar Advice:

The future of grocery store business is bright as there is a huge population in India and grocery products are required in every household family. Opportunities are huge but all you need to do is satisfy your customer, invest in better infrastructure, improvise on technology, and be ready to soar in your new business.

Frequently Asked Questions’ (faqs’)

# Is the FSSAI license mandatory before opening a a grocery store?

Yes, it is mandatory to obtain a license from the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India before opening a grocery store.

# How to choose a domain name for my online grocery store?

A Domain name should be short, relevant and easy to spell and also unique. You can search for domain names on sites like godaddy.com, bigrock.in, etc.

# Is opening a grocery store worth the investment?

Independent grocery stores earn a margin of 1-4% while larger brands earn more than 5%. Keeping the cost under control, opening a kirana store is one of the profitable businesses in India.

# Are grocery stores profitable in India?

Yes. Food Industry and Consumption is one of the best businesses which tops in India. With the right amount of investment and target marketing, grocery stores start making profits within months of launch.

# How to Use Vyapar for Your Grocery Store In Simple Steps?

Do you have a Grocery Store? Searching for the best Grocery store Billing Software? Then No worries you are at the right place.

Here you can keep your Grocery Business at your fingertips with the Best Grocery Billing Software. Download grocery store billing software on mobile & desktop for free.

As we all know, food is a basic requirement for human survival. That is why the consumption of those products which comes under the food category is high in numbers. These products are available at and sold by grocery stores. However any grocery store will have hundreds of different category products. Now inventory management of those products, making marketing for the business, and satisfying and attracting customers is very tough task for any grocery business owner.

What if a you can do all this things in a single app. Yes, you can do all these things in software like Vyapar. Nowadays, every business are turning into digital. Then, why are you waiting for let’s start your business with India’s Best billing and Accounting software. Here your business will be on your Fingertips.

# How to Create your Company?

Go to the left menu > at the top left corner click on “My Company” and add your company details. Like

Add your company LOGO
Company name
Company Description
Contact Details
Email ID

Click on “More Information” option and add additional information like

Business address
State
GSTIN number
Business category
Business type
Company/Business Authorised Signature

# Why Need to Maintain the Parties?

If you want to share the invoice preview with the customer through SMS, WhatsApp, or Email. It builds the customer relationship and also you can share the catalog link through any social media channel. If you want to track the orders easily then you need party details.

# How to maintain the Party and Party Balance?

Go to the left menu > Parties > Create new party

Add the party details, there are three types of GST registered users, select the GST type of Party.

You can also create a party group.

Left menu > Settings > party > Enable party Group.

# How to Add Multiple Parties at Once?

In Vyapar you can have Parties in bulk by busing excel template.

Go to the left menu > Utilities > Import Parties

Download the Excel Template > reopen the saved excel format & enter all party details and Save it

Now get back to utilities > Import Parties > Click on “Click here to browse” option > select the saved file from its location

Now check the details and if there is zero error then Click on Import parties button> Click on OK

Now parties have been “Updated Successfully”.

The parties will be listed as given below. Also there is color-coding. That will help you to Identify the parties easily.

You can easily send the receiving payment reminder to your parties by SMS, WhatsApp Message. Also, you have a total party balance in front of each party.

Red – You need to pay that much amount

Green – You need to collect the amount

It will help you to maintain the customer & business relation much better & also saves your time.

It allows you to import the parties from your phone device or Google contacts.

# How to Add Items?

The main thing for any business is “Inventory or Stock” management and finding out what items are getting more sales and what items sold out less. How much stock you have and how much you have to purchase can be done properly by maintaining these things in Vyapar.

How to create the category and Why it is important?

Every business has a different category of products. In particular, the Grocery store has more categories. If we create the category in the application it will be very helpful to track what category items are giving better business and it helps for the business management. Like whether you have to purchase these category items more or not.

Now let’s start with how to create the category

Go to the left menu > Settings > Item > Enable Item category

List out the item category you have. For example:

Dry fruits and vegetables
Chips and Namkeens
Cold drinks
Pickles
Fruits
Fair creams
Soaps
Masalas
Vegetable oil
Cooking items
Honey
Ice creams
Biscuits and oats & Rusk
Oral care

Are you using Barcode Scanner for billing?

Most Grocery Store contains a huge number of items and uses the barcode Scanner devices to give a better experience with their customers while billing.

So now most of the grocery stores contain items that have the following details.

Item code (Barcode)
MRP
Expiry date
Manufacturing date
Size

How to maintain the Items with these batch details?

Let’s start with how to enable these features before adding the items

Go to the left menu > Settings > Items > Enable MRP, Expiry date, Manufacturing date, and Size as per your requirement.

To add the item details go to the left menu > Items > Add Item/Add your First product and it’s Pricing details.

Most of the grocery item will have batch details like: MRP, MFG and Expiry dates to select batch tracking check box > Click on “Stock” > Click on “Batch”.

Enter all the related details of the particular item as following

You can also add the item images here itself. It will be very helpful to create “My Online Store”. We will discuss this after creating items.

As of now, we have added some demo types of materials as well as some groups. On the below page you can see all details of the items like their sale price, purchase price, and stock value, and stock quantity, and particular item transactions for quick access.

After entering all items with the categories. You will get the below look in the item category.

Here you can see, in a single particular category, how many items are left and what their stock value is. Whatever the category you will create here, will be reflected in the “My Online Store” automatically

Learn more about “My Online Store”

# How to Import Items?

There is one more option to add the items in a group (which means you can update all the items in bulk but need to enter the Additional details).

To upload the items from excel, follow these step

Go to the left menu > Utilities > Import Items

Here you can select the items from the library and export items through Excel

Click on Download template

Save excel template in the local folder

Reopen the Excel > add all item details > Save excel file

Open Vyapar application > Utilities > Import Items > click on “click here to browse” option

Select excel file that you have updated and saved earlier with the all product details

Check and if there is no products with error then click on “import__valid items” button > Click on Ok

Now the items have been Imported Successfully.

# How To Create My Online Store?

It helps to build your business marketing. It is a very easy way to Send the product catalogue so that the end-user can get the estimate in short and also he can place the order from the Catalog Link

Go to the left menu > My Online Store> Select the items you want to show on the “My Online Store” > Click on “Create Online Store” button

Note: Share the link with your clients or customers through any social media channel like whatsapp, email, instagram etc.

Here is the Short View of how your catalog looks. The categories are also visible there that you have created. Even It helps the user interface to select the item by category.

Here you can see how it will be displayed for the end-user who is going to place the order for you.

When you get the order from your customer. You will get app notification on My Online Store in the left side main menu.

Click on My Online Store > Click on open Order

Now, Convert your Online orders into a Sale or Deliver Order

# Why to use barcode?

To make fast billing and attracting the customers by displaying discounted sale price on Barcodes.

# How to Generate Barcode?

Open Vyapar App > Go to The Left Menu > Utility > Generate Barcode.

Note: Before Generating the Barcode make sure that, you have entered Item code for each items.

Now at top Right corner Printer Type and Size.

Now select the details that to be printed on Barcode. If you want to add multiple item barcode then click on “add for barcode”.

The below image will show the appearance item barcodes you can save it as a PDF or take a print of it.

# How to Make the Transaction?

Before making any sale invoice enable the option for barcode scan.

For that go to the left menu > Settings > Items > Enable barcode > enable Direct barcode scanning. It helps to make billing faster.

Go to the left menu > Sale > Add your first Sale Invoice.

Enter the below details like

1. Select the sale type. cash sale or credit sale? at the top left corner

2. Enter/Select the party

3. Select the Items > Add tax details > enter all required details > click on “Save” button

If we have entered the Items with additional item details you will get the pop-up at the time when you select that particular item. Here you need to enter that particular Item which you are selling and Its quantity . If you have entered the item code for each item, then click on the Scanner option at the top left corner in the item table > Scan the item for the number of times.

You can also create purchase invoice, sale/purchase order, estimation/Quotation, delivery challan, sale/purchase return etc. with vyapar

# How to Make “Payment-in and Payment -out” Entry?

For making receipts of payment enter all required details and save it.

Go to the left menu > Sales/Purchase > Payment-in/Payment-out > Party name > Received/Paid amount > Click on “Save” button.

You can also link your payments with your transactions in the case of advance received or pending. Enable it from Settings > Transactions > “Link payment to invoices”

# How to Get the Instant Reports?

Go to the left menu > Reports

Most of the Grocery Shops need the following reports for managing their business

Transaction Report

Sale report (Here you can see the customized view on sales)
Purchase report (Here you can see the customized view on purchases)
Daybook (Here you will get everyday transaction)
All transaction report (Here you can see all transaction in customized view)
Profit and Loss (Here you can see business total Profit and loss)
Bill wise Profit & Loss (Here you can check bill wise profit and loss on each sale invoices)
Cash flow (Here you can see the total money transaction)
Balance sheet (Here you can see total assets and liabilities)

you can get these reports in the PDF formats and some of the reports in the Excel and Graphs.

Party related Report

Party Statement (You can see all transactions of the particular party)
All party report (Here you can see all party receivable and payable amounts, It will help recollect the money from your customers)
Party wise Profit and Loss (Here you can total profit earned on each party)
Sale purchase by Party group (Here you can see the sale and purchase done by the particular group created by area, It will be helpful to take other business plans like free delivery or to open other branches, etc)

All types of GST reports

If you are registered under a regular scheme you will get these GSTR-1, GSTR-2, GSTR-3b & GSTR-9 reports in the menu. If you are registered under composition scheme you have to select that from Settings > Taxes & GST > Enable “Composition Scheme” then only you will get these GSTR-3B, GSTR-4, GSTR-9A reports in the menu.

Item/Stock Report

Here we have some reports that are likely needed for the All Grocery Shops.

Stock summary (Here you can see your current stock quantity and Stock value and Sale and purchase details)
Low stock Details (It helps to get the details of stock is about to finish and gives prior option to reorder the required products)
Stock detail report (Here you can see the beginning stock you have and how much you purchased with the amount and how much you sold with amount)

Stock Summary Report

Low Stock Details

Stock Detail Report

There are some other useful reports you can see for the other details in inventory management of your Grocery store

Watch out our demo videos related to these topics:

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