Is Udaan (EB2B marketplace) actually dying, or did it just stop being "free money"? Calling all shop owners and sellers.
Okay so I've been going down a rabbit hole researching Udaan for the past few weeks and honestly the more I read, the more confused I get.
On paper the idea was brilliant: cut out the middlemen, give small kirana stores and retailers direct access to FMCG, pharma, electronics at wholesale prices, throw in credit through BNPL, and suddenly a pan-India B2B supply chain that was broken for decades finally works. They raised like $1.9B, peaked at a $3.1B valuation, and were being compared to Alibaba at one point.
But then... something happened. Mass layoffs in 2022. Pulling back from categories. The whole "growth at any cost" thing blew up in their face.
I want to hear from people who were actually in the trenches. Not investors, not journalists, not LinkedIn gyaan.
If you're a kirana owner, small retailer, or ran a shop that used Udaan:
- Did it genuinely change how you sourced products?
- Was the credit (BNPL) actually helpful or did it create problems later?
- How was delivery and product quality in reality vs. what was promised?
- Do you still use it or did you go back to your local distributor? Why?
If you were a seller/brand/distributor on the platform:
- Was it worth it? Did volumes make sense after Udaan's cut?
- How was the relationship with their sales team on ground?
- Did you feel like they were building something real or just burning cash to inflate GMV numbers?
And the big question I can't stop thinking about:
Udaan's core problem wasn't the idea. It was execution, unit economics, and trying to scale too fast without fixing the fundamentals. The trust deficit in B2B trade (credit risk, fake orders, returns) is real and brutal.
So, is the problem actually solved now? Or is there still a massive gap in how small businesses across Tier 2/3 cities source their inventory?
Would a leaner, more focused eB2B marketplace, maybe category-specific, maybe with better on-ground ops, actually work today? Or is this space just a graveyard and nobody wants to admit it?
Genuinely curious. Drop your experience, good or bad.