Those who did not grow up with Blinkit, Instamart, and Zepto will clearly remember the nightmare of forgetting to buy a map a day before your 9 am class. Scared of getting scolded for your last-minute behavior, you somehow gather the courage to ask your parents to find a stationery store and buy you one. On cold, dark winter mornings, you and your dad would be out searching for a map, you almost in tears, just so you wouldn’t have to stand outside the class in the freezing winter at 9 a.m. This is a struggle story GenZ can easily pass on to their younger peers.
Continuing the tradition, it could be said that Gen Alpha has it much easier with a barrage of quick commerce apps competing for their attention. In just 15 minutes, they can have any stationery delivered to them, even at school. For an older generation that did not have such services at their disposal, these apps feel like gadgets from a Doraemon episode.
A Quick Transition to the Quick Commerce Era
Going for a pleasant morning walk to buy milk and bread has been replaced with ordering on your phone while half awake and getting it delivered in under 15 minutes, giving you an extra 15 minutes of sleep. First came Blinkit, then Swiggy struck back with Instamart, followed by Zepto and suddenly we had a whole quick commerce industry fighting for our attention. Funny for them because we don’t have any. Jokes aside, there is news that Flipkart is launching its Q-commerce app ‘Minutes’, and Amazon, Jio Reliance, and DMart are also eyeing entry into the space.
What Led to the Growth of Quick Commerce?
According to Goldman Sachs, Blinkit is now worth $13 billion which is higher than Zomato's primary food delivery business. These apps, once popular only in the bigger metro cities, are now widely used in relatively smaller cities like Nagpur, Kochi, and Vizag. Some offline and last-minute purchases are also moving to quick commerce, along with impulse purchases for which people are no longer going to Kirana stores.
Goldman Sachs says that Quick Commerce is doing well in India with half of online grocery purchases accounting for Quick Commerce. This is because Quick Commerce can offer products 10-15% cheaper than other ways of buying. Quick Commerce platforms also have an advantage for sourcing and pricing from manufacturers due to their success and size. In the West where these models seem to be faltering, in India it’s quite the opposite. A strategy consulting firm Redseer predicts that the Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) of the Quick Commerce industry in India will surge with a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 40-45% over the next three years. But with big growth comes big responsibilities.
Quick Delivery to Quick Talent Acquisition
Quick commerce giants are not only competing for the fastest delivery timings but are also engaged in a talent tug-of-war that goes beyond the surface. Despite the funding winter, quick commerce remains an attractive industry. Well-funded Q-commerce platforms are aggressively scaling their businesses and are willing to invest in acquiring the right leaders. Companies are offering hefty salaries of 2-3 cores and stock options to lure top leadership talent to take their businesses forward. Consequently, top leadership talent finds themselves with abundant opportunities.
Zepto, Swiggy InstaMart, and Flipkart are on a hiring spree, looking for top leadership talent to fuel their growth and take it to the next level. Flipkart may shuffle its leadership talent internally, but it is faced with the challenging act of balancing it with new and fresh talent to keep its competitive edge in the market. Industry insiders feel that Flipkart may lose top talent to their rival companies in the heat of a talent tug-of-war.
While quick commerce continues to thrive in India, buoyed by its affordability and convenience, its future success will hinge on how well these companies can navigate the talent landscape and adapt to evolving consumer needs.