(1/n) Using what is the largest active data set on Indian MSMEs, we @Khatabook did an analysis of the impact of lockdown across all Indian states and major business categories. (Thread)

Merchants have massively given their full support for digitization. Within 18 months @Khatabook has merchants present in over 700 out of 729 Indian districts. With this scale and reach, we're able to get a fairly accurate picture of the situation on ground. Here's what we found:

Lockdown period (period: 24 Mar to 17 May) hit businesses across all regions and categories. We saw an overall drop of ~50% in DAUs during the first week.
However drop was comparatively lower for grocery(-9%), mobile(-12%), health(-10%) and agriculture(-9%).

State wise impact during lockdown:

Post lockdown (May 18 to June 10) the increase in transactions is comparatively higher for automobiles(73%) and textile(76%). These are the two categories that were badly hit by the lockdown.

State wise recovery post lockdown :

Engagement on Khatabook is back to pre covid level engagement and 90% of transaction value has returned. Shopkeepers are still returning to the app after 3 months. #ExtremeStickiness

Post lockdown recovery has been very encouraging. However, for many small businesses, this year is going to be probably the hardest one in their lives and a lot of them may not survive if the crisis prolongs and more disruptions happen.

90% of Indian retail trade still flows through small merchants. If life during lockdown did not come to a standstill inside our homes, it was because these heroes were putting our needs first. Now is the time they need us to stand by them.

#VokalforLokal #JaiHind