How to Start a Home Delivery Business for Your Shop

Two ways to run home delivery

A shop does not need a delivery company to offer home delivery. The simplest start is your own riders: register a delivery boy in e-Kirana, assign an order to him, and he carries it with the delivery-partner app while the customer follows live GPS tracking. He can carry several nearby orders at once on an optimised route, so a single trip covers a whole cluster of streets. This works beautifully for the roads around your shop — the area you already know best.

For orders beyond your own range, e-Kirana can hand the order to a courier partnerinstead of losing the sale. A partner such as Shiprocket Quick offers same-day hyperlocal delivery in major metros — Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai and Ahmedabad — backed by Shiprocket's pan-India network reaching 19,000+ pincodes (Shiprocket's claim). You decide per order which to use, keeping close deliveries in-house and reaching farther customers through the courier.

Own riders vs. courier partner

The everyday decision is which orders your own delivery boy handles and which go to a courier. Both run from the same e-Kirana screen, so you switch between them order by order. Here is how they compare.

For the full delivery picture — the rider app, batching and routing — see the kirana home delivery app guide.

How a delivery flows, step by step

Every delivery follows the same loop — order, confirm, assign, deliver, close — and all of it runs from the desktop app you already bill on. You never juggle two systems.

1. 1The order lands at your counter.

   A customer orders from your online store, or through the customer app or PWA. It appears in your e-Kirana billing screen alongside your walk-in bills — one queue for everything.

2. 2Payment is confirmed before you pack.

   For UPI orders, the e-Kirana Payments companion app verifies the payment automatically, so you know it is genuinely paid. For cash on delivery, the order is marked COD and the cash is collected at the door instead.

3. 3You choose own rider or courier partner.

   If the address is in your area, assign it to your own delivery boy. If it is beyond your range, hand it to a courier partner such as Shiprocket Quick — decided per order, so close roads stay in-house and far ones still get served.

4. 4Nearby orders are batched onto one route.

   For your own riders, e-Kirana batches several nearby orders together and optimises the route, so one delivery boy clears a whole cluster of streets in a single efficient trip instead of going back and forth.

5. 5The customer tracks it live to the door.

   Your rider carries the delivery-partner app and the customer watches live GPS tracking on the map until it arrives. When the order is delivered — and any COD cash collected — it is closed off in e-Kirana.

Why batching and route optimisation matter

The difference between home delivery making money and losing money is usually the number of trips. If your delivery boy rides out for every single order, one rider can only manage a handful of deliveries an hour and your fuel and time costs climb. Order batching groups several nearby orders so they go out together, and route optimisation puts them in the most efficient order on the map. The result is more deliveries per trip, less riding around, and customers served faster. For a kirana shop this is what makes a one- or two-rider operation actually viable — you are not trying to out-spend a venture-funded giant, you are running tight, local routes through streets you already know. When an order falls outside that cluster, the courier-partner option picks it up so you never have to refuse a customer just because they live a little farther out.

• •More drops per trip — batch nearby orders so one ride clears many doors.
• •Shorter routes — optimisation orders the stops to cut distance and time.
• •Live GPS tracking so the customer sees it coming and you field fewer "where is it?" calls.
• •Courier fallback for the far orders, so distance never costs you a sale.

How do I start delivering this week?

You start by installing e-Kirana on a Windows computer and using it for billing. Home delivery is then a few switches, not a project: register your delivery boy, set the area he covers, and start assigning orders to him. Turn on a courier partner like Shiprocket Quick for the orders that fall outside that area. Because ordering, payment confirmation and dispatch all run from this one app, you are not stitching together separate tools or hiring a tech team. Most shops are taking and delivering orders the same week they set up billing — no developer, no fleet, no monthly commission to e-Kirana.

1. 1Install e-Kirana on a Windows PC and start billing at your counter.
2. 2Register your delivery boy and set the area your own riders will cover.
3. 3Pair the e-Kirana Payments companion app so UPI orders are auto-verified.
4. 4Turn on a courier partner such as Shiprocket Quick for out-of-range orders.
5. 5Take orders, batch the nearby ones, assign or dispatch, and let customers track live.

Delivery is one part of the wider toolkit. For everything the software covers, see kirana store software.

How much does it cost?

See the full breakdown on the pricing page.

Key facts

• ✓Deliver with your own riders — register, assign, and they carry it with the delivery-partner app.
• ✓Or use a courier partner like Shiprocket Quick for out-of-range orders — same-day in major metros, 19,000+ pincodes (Shiprocket's claim).
• ✓Order batching and route optimisation so one rider clears nearby orders in a single efficient trip.
• ✓Live GPS tracking to the door, so customers see exactly where their order is.
• ✓COD recording and automatic UPI payment verification via the e-Kirana Payments companion app.
• ✓Runs from the same app as billing & POS, inventory by barcode and your online store, in 22 Indian languages.
• ✓Pricing: ₹2,999/year (Standard) and ₹4,999/year (Business), both +18% GST, annual only. No free trial; no commission on your sales.

Frequently asked questions