By Surbhi Kaul
A Reddit user recently made waves online by claiming that a local kirana store in their neighbourhood earns a staggering Rs 70 lakh in annual profit. The revelation sparked a lively debate about the true earnings of small, family-run grocery shops in today鈥檚 era dominated by online services. The user shared, 鈥淭here is a kiranawala near my area. He has an almost 300 sq. ft. shop. It鈥檚 a main road and he owns the shop. He sells all kinds of household cooking material from rice, pulses and whatnot. His son and my cousin are friends and he said that his father earns almost 70 lakh a profit in a year.鈥 They went on to add, 鈥淚 initially used to think that a kiranawala does not earn much because now everything is online 鈥 like Zepto and Instamart. But I was wrong. Such small businesses are earning so much.鈥 The post immediately drew attention, racking up hundreds of comments. Many users found the profit figure hard to believe. One skeptical commenter wrote, 鈥淣ot possible. 70 lakhs might be the amount of sales.鈥 Another offered a nuanced take: 鈥淣ope. My friend鈥檚 in a tier 3 city has a supermarket store, that is, Kirana + stationary + other retail items. And she was once doing a back of the envelope calculation on repayment of a loan. At that time, she was calculating a pure profit of 2 lakhs per month. Not turnover, just pure profits. So, in a tier 1 city, a profit of 70 lakhs is possible.鈥 Adding to the discussion, someone chimed in, 鈥淭hat鈥檚 what educated, white-collared people think. Such small businesses do turnovers that we can鈥檛 even think of. My BIL who owns such a small Kirana shop closed his 60 lakhs housing loan in flat 30 months whereas most of my cousins working in IT and other corporate jobs with good salaries had to toil for at least 10 years to settle their housing loan.鈥 However, some continued to express doubt. One user wrote, 鈥淏ro I own a shop. I know the numbers. I know what I am talking about. 60 lakhs in 30 months is still possible. That鈥檚 2 lakhs profit monthly. But OP is talking about 70 lakhs profit in 1 year. That is not possible with a small store.鈥 Others highlighted that success might come with time: 鈥淲e don鈥檛 know how much time that kirana store took to be at this level of income, I think it takes time to grow big and win customers鈥 trust.鈥 Another commenter attempted a rough calculation to disprove the claim: 鈥淔or a profit of 70 lakh INR, his revenue has to be somewhere around 7Cr. Which means he sells stuff worth about 60 lakh per month. Brother this kinda revenue is unheard of for a Kirana store owner. Your friend is not being honest.鈥