Two of the largest quick commerce platforms–Zomato-owned Blinkit and Mumbai-based upstart Zepto–are fast entering ecommerce territory and are set to add several categories like fashion, beauty, electronics, toys, home and kitchen among other segments. Meanwhile, Zepto, the first unicorn of 2023, has hit $1 billion in annualised gross sales as of the latest numbers, people aware of the matter said. These platforms will add thousands of new SKUs in the next two months, taking the number to over 10,000 as they see consumers coming for frequent purchases driving commerce through the platform. Going beyond grocery and staples will increase the scale of quick commerce significantly, impacting both established ecommerce rivals Flipkart and Amazon as well as nearby kiranas, people aware of the plans said.

These platforms are also adding more muscle to their logistics networks in order to serve a wide range of products and ensure they are connected to dark stores and available for deliveries. From two years ago–when quick commerce was starting to take shape in India–this is a significant expansion in strategy carrying a big number of SKUs for faster delivery timelines.

Blinkit and Zepto have forayed into fashion, tying up with apparel firms and sellers for listing of brands including Adidas, Pepe Jeans, Jockey, Manyavar, XYXX and Mad Over Print. While the foray into apparel for both the platforms is in early stages, people aware of the developments say the companies could end up becoming the go-to destinations for shoppers in certain use cases. Mumbai-based Zepto is marketing its apparel products to potential users citing the need for clothes and garments needed on short notice.

Zepto’s cofounder and CEO Aadit Palicha confirmed hitting $1 billion gross sale run-rate.

“We will be expanding our assortment into new categories like apparel, beauty, home and kitchen as consumer demand for these products is increasing on our platform,” Palicha said. “We are consistently seeing more frequent commerce taking place on the platform and the average user spend is increasing over a period of time. With new brands and categories, the ability to drive higher output per order within the same cost increases.”

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He added the company has been working on the project since last year given the potentially large total addressable market (TAM) for quick commerce is much bigger than initially anticipated.
Blinkit CEO Albinder Dhindsa told ET that the Gurugram-based firm is still experimenting with the category and does not have a thesis for the segment yet.

“We plan from the point of view of what the customer needs. On fashion, we’ve started some experiments but we don’t have a gameplan yet. Adidas started selling recently… they came onboard as a brand,” Dhindsa said. “It takes us about a year’s worth of work to have a thesis on what a category is. What you’re seeing in beauty today… work has been happening on that for the last 1-1.5 years… At any time we’re experimenting with five or six (categories).”

Blinkit has clocked a GMV of more than $1 billion for the first nine months of FY24. Swiggy saw 63% growth in Instamart gross sales during the first half of FY24, according to a Prosus filing.

BigBasket’s BB Now is the other player in the segment but is a late entrant and is catching up with bigger rivals. Reliance Retail-backed Dunzo, for all practical purposes, withdrew from this market owing to its own cash crunch.

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Blurring lines

All said, challenging horizontal ecommerce majors won’t be as easy for quick commerce players. Much would depend on execution across key stages–from sourcing to 1delivery.

“It won’t be easy at all. There are sectoral issues, for example in fashion with returns. Other segments too will have challenges but a lot of work is being put in place to find a solution because there is a consumer demand,” one of the top industry executives said.

“Offering width is challenging for ecommerce itself. Large products (by size) and value will still be driven by ecommerce but it would be interesting to see if quick commerce players can challenge ecommerce in a meaningful manner,” another senior ecommerce industry executive said.

On price points, a senior quick-commerce executive said the cost of selling on quick commerce may also rationalise at a higher scale for brands. Similarly, product returns would be an area to address as that’s not part of the framework while selling grocery and other daily items.

“We’ve seen brands sell the same products cheaper on Amazon because the cost of doing business with quick-commerce may be higher. But as we scale up, we are seeing them bring quick-commerce to parity…or in a few cases, go more aggressive on quick-commerce. But that’s their journey,” this person said, adding the same occurred with FMCG companies like HUL, Nestle, Mondelez. “But now that there’s a lot of buying on these platforms… and quick-commerce has become an important channel, they’re putting a lot more focus.”