In this week's newsletter, also read about HAL's challenges in fulfilling IAF's commitments, the work of Indra Water and Koita Foundation, and more
Deepinder Goyal, CEO, Zomato Image: Madhu Kapparath
The story of quick commerce in urban India goes something like this: It is the fastest-growing ecommerce segment. Its market size jumped from $0.3 billion in FY22 to $3.8 billion in FY24 and is likely to reach $7.1 billion by the end of FY25. Experts and analysts believe that the availability of low-cost employable labour has been among the crucial factors for the success of quick commerce in India. Deepinder Goyal's Blinkit plays a significant role in writing this chapter. Goyal even came up with a new name for his latest consumer tech powerhouse—Eternal, which also includes Zomato, District, and HyperPure. While new avenues are being searched, old questions about growth and profitability remain unresolved. What is Goyal's game plan? Let the man himself tell you.
Grocery stores, such as this one in Dwarka, New Delhi, are experiencing lower purchase volumes amid the rise of quick commerce. Image: Amit Verma
Running a house is also about meticulous planning, which involves taking inventory, costing, budgeting, and negotiating tasks to make life easy. So when there are gaps in this planning, people, at least in urban India, are now turning to quick commerce services. Be it medicine delivery in the middle of the night or bringing cooking oil at the break of dawn so that breakfast is cooked on time. Blinkit, Instamart, Zepto, Flipkart Minutes, BigBasket, and even your nukkad ka store is playing this 10-minute delivery game. But being on top of this comes at a cost. This industry is burning Rs1300-1500 crore every month. There are no profit-making Qcomm companies yet. The second important story from Forbes India's Quick Commerce special issue asks if this fast and furious business model is sustainable in the long term. If only they had Vin Diesel in their family!
Hari Menon, co-founder and CEO of BigBasket Image: Selvaprakash Lakshmanan for Forbes India
India's 'fastest growing industry segment ever' logged a 24-fold increase in gross order value between FY22 to FY25. BigBasket, one of the prominent entities on India's quick commerce canvas, appeared on the scene in 2023 with BBNow. A year later, the Tata Digital-owned company transitioned from India’s biggest online grocery delivery platform to a full-scale quick commerce brand that now gets 50 percent of its business from non-grocery items. BBNow is playing catch up with the race leaders, but Hari Menon, co-founder and CEO of BigBasket, is confident their mastery of dark stores will help them. In conversation with Forbes India, Menon also discusses why profitability is tough in the business, managing valuations, and more.