look news india
The need for social distancing in the times of Covid has developed a new trend of online grocery shopping and its fast delivery across India. In that period, Zomato’s Blinkit and Swiggy’s Instamart started making people habituated to it and Zepto came and changed the whole game. Now it’s not just fast grocery delivery, everything from iPhones to new chargers and trimmers is being delivered within 10 minutes of making your tea. If sugar disappears while making tea, the practice is to add sugar rapidly until the tea boils.
Once again the food platform will deliver within 10 minutes
Zomato and Swiggy have now started food delivery in 10 minutes. Platforms like Zomato’s BlinkIt, Swiggy Instamart and Zepto have created a new trend in India by delivering essential items within 10 to 30 minutes. As a result of this, big online retailers like Amazon, Flipkart have also jumped into the fray. Along with Big Basket and Reliance Industries, Tata Group has also entered this segment with Jio Mart. The same battle has now come to food delivery…due to operational challenges, the services that promised delivery in 10 minutes were discontinued after just one year i.e. in the year 2023. The quick food delivery concept, which had failed once before, is now being revamped in this year 2024-25.
Entering commerce to maintain business
If we look at big delivery platforms like Swiggy and Zomato, their core function was food delivery. But to maintain this business, these companies entered the fast commerce segment. Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal himself has said in an interview that buying Grofers and creating BlinkIt was necessary to run his business. Both Zomato and Swiggy are competitors, so Swiggy has strengthened Instamart’s game. With the entry of Zepto in this segment, Quick Commerce started expanding its offerings. What was earlier a grocery delivery business has now extended to household goods. Zepto every time adds new items in this segment and expands its commodity, which is also followed by other companies. Although Jio Mart started with Zepto’s concept by making local grocery stores its partners, Zepto won due to better user experience.
All these startups were born due to cash burn. Therefore, to increase their stability they have to expand new business every day. So, the business which started out of necessity during Covid, these companies made it a habit among people through offers (burning cash). Food delivery in 10 minutes is now part of the same expansion. Notably, all these startups became profitable when they started charging platform fees to customers. But why is there so much controversy over this segment?
What is the main reason behind competition?
Urbanization is currently expanding in India. Real estate is also developing rapidly and the expenditure of the middle class is also increasing. Therefore, the consumer who embraced online shopping in the 2010s has seen an era of multi-day delivery and mis-delivery of goods. In the 2020s, Quick Commerce eliminated all those problems. In such a situation, customers with new aspirations now want online shopping along with shorter delivery time. That is why apparel platforms like Myntra have also started fast delivery of clothes. The mathematics of money also works behind this.
According to a report, in the year 2023, there will be a total business of 2.3 billion dollars or about 2.3 crore rupees on these rapid commerce platforms. Goods worth Rs 19,760 crore were purchased. Which is 22 percent more than 2022. According to another report, in 2025 this figure may increase to 5.5 billion dollars i.e. about Rs 47,250 crore. In such a situation, every company wants to ensure its share in this rapidly growing market.