Every brand name product in your home — Surf Excel, Aashirvaad, Fortune oil, Clinic Plus — went through a chain before it reached you. Brand → distributor → stockist → retailer → you. Most people skip over the stockist. They shouldn't.
The authorised stockist layer
An authorised FMCG stockist is a licensed business that receives goods directly from the brand's distributor and supplies them to retailers — kiranas, supermarkets, and now app-based platforms. They are GST-registered, FSSAI-compliant (for food products), and operate a warehouse — called a godown — that supplies the area's shops.
In a city like Madurai, the authorised stockists number in the hundreds, all members of the Madurai District Consumer Product Stockist Association (MDCPSA) — 750+ members. They collectively supply much of the city's retail FMCG demand.
Why this matters for your grocery bill
The stockist sells to the kirana at a price called the "stockist price" or "sale rate." The kirana adds its margin before selling to you. Online grocery apps add even more on top of that — through inflated MRPs and platform fees.
VeBy shows you the stockist's sale rate directly. No kirana margin. No platform markup. That's where the saving comes from — we're removing margin layers, not running a discount.
The VeBy model
Instead of building a warehouse to compete with stockist godowns, VeBy connects to stockist billing software directly. When you browse VeBy, you see the same prices that kiranas pay. The stockist processes your order like any other delivery — they already do this for dozens of kiranas every day.