Janhavi Jain Maps Seven Shifts Driven by India's Quick Commerce Boom
Janhavi Jain, building SKIPD, outlines seven ways India's quick commerce market, valued at $5.4B and led by Blinkit, Zepto and Instamart, has changed buying behavior. Points include late-night buying peaks, trial-size purchases, weakening brand loyalty, and quick commerce becoming an ad business.
Original post · 2 min read
Quick commerce is a $5.4B market in India growing at 70-80% CAGR. Blinkit, Zepto, Instamart collectively do 4M+ orders a day. But the interesting story isn’t the business.
It’s what it did to how Indians buy things. 7 shifts nobody saw coming.
1/ 73% of q-com orders happen outside traditional shopping hours. 10pm-1am is now peak for ice cream, condoms, skincare, snacking. Three years ago this buying window didn’t exist. An entirely new consumption slot was invented and nobody’s talking about it.
2/ ₹149 mini sunscreen outsells ₹599 full size on Blinkit. The full bottle is a commitment. The mini is a maybe. Consumers are treating q-com like a sample store. Brands without trial SKUs are invisible.
3/ Brand loyalty disappeared in grocery. Search “atta” on Zepto. 8 brands sorted by delivery time. The one in the nearest dark store wins. Not the one your mom used. For staples, proximity replaced preference. Terrifying if you’re a legacy FMCG brand.
4/ Kirana shops aren’t losing staples. They’re losing the ₹50-200 impulse buy. The chocolate, the chips, the random face mask. The small purchases that used to happen because you were already in the store. That foot traffic is gone and it’s not coming back.
5/ Men started buying skincare. The anonymity of tapping “face wash” on Blinkit vs asking for it at a medical store broke a psychological barrier nobody was talking about. Embarrassment was the barrier all along. Men’s grooming on q-com is growing faster than any other beauty subcategory.
6/ Blinkit and Zepto aren’t delivery companies anymore. They’re media businesses. Blinkit’s ad revenue grew 220% YoY. Both crossed ₹1,000 Cr in annual ad revenue by FY25. Ads are now 15% of Blinkit’s total revenue. If you’re thinking of q-com as just a listing channel, you’re missing the point.
7/ The delivery bar moved for everyone. If Zepto delivers in 10 minutes, why does your D2C site take 5 days? The consumer doesn’t separate “q-com speed” from “normal speed.” Every brand shipping in 3-5 days is now competing against a 10-minute standard they didn’t set and can’t match.
Quick commerce didn’t just create a new delivery channel. It rewired how 50 million Indians think about buying things
It’s what it did to how Indians buy things. 7 shifts nobody saw coming.
1/ 73% of q-com orders happen outside traditional shopping hours. 10pm-1am is now peak for ice cream, condoms, skincare, snacking. Three years ago this buying window didn’t exist. An entirely new consumption slot was invented and nobody’s talking about it.
2/ ₹149 mini sunscreen outsells ₹599 full size on Blinkit. The full bottle is a commitment. The mini is a maybe. Consumers are treating q-com like a sample store. Brands without trial SKUs are invisible.
3/ Brand loyalty disappeared in grocery. Search “atta” on Zepto. 8 brands sorted by delivery time. The one in the nearest dark store wins. Not the one your mom used. For staples, proximity replaced preference. Terrifying if you’re a legacy FMCG brand.
4/ Kirana shops aren’t losing staples. They’re losing the ₹50-200 impulse buy. The chocolate, the chips, the random face mask. The small purchases that used to happen because you were already in the store. That foot traffic is gone and it’s not coming back.
5/ Men started buying skincare. The anonymity of tapping “face wash” on Blinkit vs asking for it at a medical store broke a psychological barrier nobody was talking about. Embarrassment was the barrier all along. Men’s grooming on q-com is growing faster than any other beauty subcategory.
6/ Blinkit and Zepto aren’t delivery companies anymore. They’re media businesses. Blinkit’s ad revenue grew 220% YoY. Both crossed ₹1,000 Cr in annual ad revenue by FY25. Ads are now 15% of Blinkit’s total revenue. If you’re thinking of q-com as just a listing channel, you’re missing the point.
7/ The delivery bar moved for everyone. If Zepto delivers in 10 minutes, why does your D2C site take 5 days? The consumer doesn’t separate “q-com speed” from “normal speed.” Every brand shipping in 3-5 days is now competing against a 10-minute standard they didn’t set and can’t match.
Quick commerce didn’t just create a new delivery channel. It rewired how 50 million Indians think about buying things
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