KOCHI: Small grocery shops across the state, which had felt the heat after the rise of supermarkets, are making a comeback, thanks to the change in the public’s shopping culture since the Covid outbreak. The trend in the city is not different either as several customers who preferred to purchase grocery from supermarkets have started returning to small shops in their neighbourhood.“After the restaurants were shut down due to the lockdown, the volume of business had come down. But several new customers are visiting my shop daily. The fear of contracting the infection from supermarkets and the time they have to spend in queues to enter the shops due to the Covid-19 protocol could be the reasons,” said Jose A A, who runs a grocery shop in Kaloor, adjacent to a supermarket.
Several other small grocery shop owners in the district felt the same.“Some of the people who frequent our shops now had never come to us before the lockdown. Many of them have stopped purchasing from the supermarkets and we’re giving items to some of them even on credit basis,” said Bose, who runs a shop near Vaduthala-Chittur bridge. To avoid rush at his shop, Bose has started taking orders through WhatsApp.
“I’ve given my WhatsApp number to all my customers. All they need to do is send a message and I’ll get the items ready before they visit the shop. This helps us avoid the rush,” Bose added.A supermarket manager told TNIE on condition of anonymity that the number of people visiting supermarkets has down compared to pre-Covid days. “There was some panic buying at the beginning of the lockdown. But now people are buying only what they require. “It’s a fact that the number of customers purchasing from supermarkets has come down drastically. Many of them have left the city for their native places and that could also be a reason behind it,” said the official.