Why have shopkeepers stopped giving toffees instead of loose cash?
Remember every time you asked for the remaining change amount at a shop and got candies instead? The brazen gesture by shopkeepers often pissed all of us. Over the years, this practice of giving away toffees instead of the remaining change account became prevalent at all shops.But in two years of pandemic, everything changed. If you observe closely, the trend of toffees for change has seen a steep decline. While it has spared us from the frustrating experience of our pockets being overloaded with toffees while shopping, it has spelt doom for toffee business in India.Abhishek Patil, growth leader at Cred and Dunzo, in a viral LinkedIn post decodes how the candy brands are suffering immense losses with the advent of UPI platforms in India.
The GrowthX founder says,”Before UPI, shopkeepers would shamelessly trade toffees for loose cash, a transaction that wasn’t happening other way round. These small amounts over days did wound up to becoming large sums of money, as accepted by many buyers in studies”. Patil explains that with UPI this practice stopped as people started paying the exact amount thereby eliminating the need for change. As a result, the daily toffee sales got hit.The post has been shared more than 100 LinkedIn users at the time of filing this report. Patil also cited the Covid-19 pandemic which led to the buyers opt for digital and contactless payments. As a result, the push towards digital payments led to toffees as change amounts went out of picture.The entrepreneur explains that most of the toffee brands like Mars, Mondelez, Parle etc have reported a steep decline in the sales of toffees. According to his LinkedIn post, Hershey has said India is one of the worst-hit markets in the post-Covid era. Patil concludes that the companies need to keep an eye on what are the reasons people buy that product and what could change their buying behaviour.The payment through UPIs crossed milestone of ₹11 lakh crore in September, PTI quoted the data released by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). A total of 678 crore transactions were done in the previous month on the platform launched in 2016. During the month, 678 crore transactions in volume terms were done on the platform launched in 2016.
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