Q-commerce, quick commerce, instant deliveries: India
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
Status
As in 2024
May 6, 2024: The Times of India
Mumbai: Two years ago, people laughed off the concept of quick commerce or instant deliveries. Some even asserted that consumers do not need products in 10-15 minutes.
Today, however, quick commerce is fast becoming ubiquitous for many millennial and Gen Z households. Companies have moved beyond groceries to deliver items ranging from fans and T-shirts to jewellery and iPhones,reports Asmita Dey.
In a recent note, Goldman Sachs said Blinkit’s implied valuation — estimated at $13 billion — is now higher than that of parent Zomato’s core food delivery business, indicating the rapid growth of the segment. Though still largely a metro play, Q-commerce is finding takers in cities like Vizag, Nagpur, Kochi, Jaipur and Lucknow, executives at Swiggy Instamart and BigBasket told TOI.
‘Q-commerce accounts for 50% of online grocery mkt’
“In the past one year, half the new customers that we have added are all pure play quick commerce customers, who often do not make planned purchases and end up buying 4-15 times a month from our platform,” said Seshu Kumar Tirumala, chief buying and merchandising officer at BigBasket.
For Swiggy, growth of Instamart in non-metros like Jaipur and Kochi has more than doubled in the past 12 months. “Given the wide array of products, we are seeing good traction in both metros and nonmetros,” said Phani Kishan, CEO, Swiggy Instamart. With platforms like Zepto, Swiggy Instamart and Blinkit expanding into categories like beauty and personal care (BPC), toys, electronics, stationery items, a percentage of ecommerce sales is bound to get impacted. Non-grocery items account for about 15%-20% of quick commerce purchases.
“If consumers can get a toy or a BPC item on a quick commerce platform instantly, they won’t wait for Amazon and Flipkart. That is why players like Flipkart have started working on the quick commerce model,” Meena said. “Consumers have been ordering everything, from gold coins during the festive season to air purifiers, FASTags, headphones, toys and more,” said Kishan.
Goldman Sachs estimates size of online grocery market, in terms of gross order value (GOV), to be about $11 billion as of FY24. Of this, quick commerce already makes up 50% or $5 billion. Q-commerce platforms have also been able to price products about 10%-15% cheaper than local kirana stores, giving them an edge in the game. “Given the scale of platforms such as Blinkit, they are able to get pricing/sourcing advantage from manufacturers,” said analysts at the firm.
In terms of wallet share, Qcommerce accounts for 5%-6% of a household’s grocery spends. This can go up to 10%-15% in years to come given rising adoption, said Karan Taurani, senior VP, Elara Capital.
Ketaki Desai, Dec 1, 2024: The Times of India
From: Ketaki Desai, Dec 1, 2024: The Times of India
Technology often has a magical quality to it. The idea that we would all carry small computers in our pockets was squarely the stuff of science fiction. The fact that we would use one of these devices to buy stuff without getting up from our sofas would have sounded even more bizarre even a few decades ago. Just a few steps away from the popular children’s show ‘Shaka Laka Boom Boom’ where a child with a bowl haircut could acquire any object he drew with his magical pencil. Thankfully, we do not have to rely on artistic prowess to get the items of our dreams without trips to the market. Not just that, the pandemic lockdown spurred two Stanford dropouts to give us hyperfast deliveries, leaving the 10-minute delivery skeptics to eat their words.
But now Indian consumers are not only ordering grocery staples, late-night chakna (snacks), last-minute Diwali kurtas and passport-size photos, but high-value items like iPhones, gaming consoles and air purifiers, as well as beauty and wellness items.
Overall FMCG sales on quick commerce or q-commerce platforms like Swiggy Instamart, Zepto, Blinkit and BBNow have doubled to 35% in the last fiscal year, the Economic Times reported. A Swiggy Instamart spokesperson says, “Non-grocery categories have grown 3-4x in just six months, with rising demand for electronics, home and kitchen items and toys. Big-ticket items like vacuum cleaners, food processors and soundbars are contributing significantly to this growth.”
Shivaraj Jayakumar, practice leader, Consumer and Internet at consulting firm Praxis Global Alliance, says there are three reasons for this diversification of categories. “First, to become the one-stop solution for customers’ shopping needs. Two, to add more monthly active customers and three, to drive up average order values (AOVs).” It’s paying off. In FY24, there was a 15% increase in AOVs — the average amount users spend per order — for q-commerce platforms, a RedSeer Consulting report finds.
Convenience, of course, is a big part of the draw. Struggling with the Delhi air, Adya Singh decided to buy an air purifier. Twenty minutes later, it had arrived. Others, however, wonder if something is lost in our quest for convenience. Delhi-based student Aueshic Das bought a PS5 on a q-commerce platform earlier this year but wasn’t very satisfied. “I was nearing my 25th birthday and had been planning on buying a gaming console for a year but hadn’t got around to it,” Das says. While the speed was unparalleled, it took away some of the sheen of making a big purchase. “Usually, I would make a day out of it by going to the store and celebrating later. This didn’t feel special.”
Other users have their own strange encounters. A Delhi shopper posted on social media about how Swiggy Instamart dropped off a condom order at his office reception in a transparent bag. Development professional Mili (name changed) bought a vibrator on Blinkit one night. When her partner went to answer the door, the delivery partner insisted on taking a video. “When I opened the package, the bag was torn. It looked like someone had tried to rip it open. You expect some discretion when you order these things,” she says.
A Zepto representative says that people are now comfortable with spending more money on q-commerce. The decision to list electronics stemmed from wanting to “be able to offer whatever our users demand from us and is feasible as part of the quick commerce delivery operations”. There are logistics that make some items unfeasible for q-commerce. “We don’t list TV, refrigerators etc. The electronics listed on our platform are delivery partner bag-friendly — phones, accessories, speakers and the likes,” says the representative. A Swiggy Instamart spokesperson details the change in operations because of pricier items. “With a presence in 43+ cities, we’ve introduced larger dark stores and heavy-duty racks, to hold more assortment and bulkier items.
Additionally, we are building a dedicated bulk delivery fleet of vehicles to efficiently deliver larger items to customers. We also offer an easy and quick returns process and we are actively working to expand this feature to more categories and use cases.” Blinkit is hoping to have 1,000 dark stores in FY25, up from around 791 that they currently have, while Zepto plans to add 200 more dark stores, ET reports.
Jayakumar adds that changes to supply chain and delivery are inevitable. “Increasingly, as players expand their assortment, the need to have larger dark stores will emerge. You will see quick-commerce players doing two things to manage,” he says. “One, split orders from multiple dark stores in a micro market with one main dark store which can hold up to 25K stock keeping units (SKUs) and many smaller dark stores holding up to 10K SKUs. So eventually, you will see order splitting happening with fast-moving items reaching in 10 min with slower moving SKUs/ SKUs space coming to your doorstep in 30 min.”
Just as streaming platforms have changed how long we’re willing to wait to watch a new movie, our online shopping expectations are evolving as q-commerce services do. The bottom line, of course, is whether for quick commerce players, this will be a quick route to profitability.
