Ecommerce To Morph Into Quick Commerce In India: Blinkit SVP
“Quick commerce is going to be ecommerce in India,” Blinkit’s senior vice president (SVP) Anish Srivastava said during a fireside chat with Farmley cofounder Abhishek Agarwal at an event organised by the D2C snacking brand.
Noting that the number of dark stores in the country would hover in the range of 15,000 to 20,000 in the next two years, Srivastava said that “for all practical purposes”, the top 200 cities in India would transition to quick commerce from ecommerce by 2027. He added that the reason behind this is the rising adoption of quick commerce in non-metros cities.
“The narrative always was, up till last year or even now, that this (quick commerce) is a business model that works only in the top 10 to 20 cities of the country. As we speak now, Blinkit is present in close to 200 cities, including tier II & III cities like Begusarai, Bhagalpur and even Shillong,” he said.
However, Swiggy Instamart CEO Amitesh Jha believes that the market penetration of quick commerce in India is extremely low at the moment. But, he added that the adoption and love of consumers is extremely high for quick commerce.
Drawing parallels between the future of quick commerce in India and the rise of video commerce in markets like China and Southeast Asia, Jha pointed out that the growth of such video-led platforms in the region was led by a simple shift in how people wanted to shop, and not early predictions or complex forecasts. He expects quick commerce to follow the same trajectory in the country.
Notably, in China, video commerce, particularly via live-streaming and short videos, has gone from a niche format to a massive industry. The Chinese live commerce market was valued at around $4.5 Bn in 2024 alone, and it’s expected to grow to nearly $24 Bn by 2030.
Southeast Asia, too, has followed a similar pattern. While video commerce made up just 5% of online sales in 2022, the metric jumped to nearly 20% by 2025.
Citing a similar trend for quick commerce in the country, Jha said, “The penetration in the market is extremely low, the love of the consumer is extremely high.”
Sharing his insights on the consumer behaviour in India, Jha noted that consumers (without specifying which demographic) are no longer shopping the way they used to. Expanding his thoughts, he said that planned weekly purchases are now being replaced by impulse-driven, frequent, and smaller orders.
“Impulse buying isn’t small anymore. At one end where one of our customers ordered INR 80 cookies, another bought gold worth INR 8 Lakh. Same platform. That’s the kind of range we’re dealing with now,” he added.
Meanwhile, Blinkit’s SVP had another interesting take on the situation. According to Srivastava, quick commerce platforms in India have to take into consideration the surprise spike in demand, which has become common now.
“One recent example was on New Year’s Eve. A Spanish tradition encouraging people to eat eight grapes at midnight for good luck went viral on Indian social media on December 31. Blinkit staff, already busy with year-end traffic, had no clue. But suddenly, grapes started flying off shelves. Sales jumped 10X across the country. It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t forecasted. But, it emptied inventories in hours,” he said.
The Blinkit SVP said that the platform now has Gen Z team members monitoring memes to stay ahead of such random trends.
Caution For BrandsWhile consumer adoption appears stronger than ever in the quick commerce sector in India, the ambition to cater a larger audience at once might also affect a brand’s standing.
According to Srivastava, visibility on quick commerce is finite. “Each SKU costs money and storage. Brands often make the mistake of launching wide, trying to be present in every city, every store. But quick commerce punishes that approach.”
Explaining the mathematics, he said that a brand, which is looking to be present in 1,500 dark stores with five SKUs, needs to stock at least four units per SKU per store. “That’s 30,000 units on day one. If the cost price is INR 100, that will result in INR 30 Lakh in locked inventory – just to show up,” he added.
Notably, this calculation doesn’t include logistics, spoilage, or marketing. “For a small or mid-sized brand, that’s a big cash flow risk. The smarter approach is to go city-by-city, SKU-by-SKU,” Srivastava added.
Furthermore, he believes that price parity is another major concern for brands. He explained that offline, modern retail, ecommerce, and quick commerce have different cost structures.
“Retailers want margins. Platforms want performance. Warehouses and logistics add their own costs. Naturally, the instinct is to vary pricing across channels. But, Indian consumers are now exposed to all of them, often on the same day. If a brand prices a product at INR 100 in a store, INR 120 on one site, and INR 110 on another, consumers notice,” he said.
The comments hold significance as quick commerce platforms have witnessed a massive surge in sales in the past few years. While Blinkit more than doubled its adjusted revenue YoY to INR 5,206 Cr in FY25, Instamart saw its adjusted revenue soar 106% YoY to INR 2,252 Cr in the fiscal under review. The numbers for Zepto are not out yet.
As adoption grows further on the back of digital savvy consumers and rising internet penetration, the Indian quick commerce segment is projected to become a $40 Bn market by 2030.
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