Flipkart has FOMO? Zepto and Blinkit are changing the e-commerce giant

livemint.com:

₹999, was a tad cheaper when compared to the other online stores. While speed wasn’t a top priority, the swift delivery didn’t hurt. “Within minutes, I had the hair dryer in hand, along with some savings," said Sanjith.

Blinkit, owned by Zomato, is a quick commerce company. So are Swiggy Instamart and Zepto. They mostly deliver goods to our homes super quick, within 15-20 minutes.

These companies have set up dark stores or micro-fulfillment centres across many neighbourhoods in a city to facilitate the stocking, packing and fast dispatch of orders. Convenience-loving millennials in India’s large cities have lapped up their services—the gross merchandise value (GMV) of quick commerce, or the value of all goods sold, have jumped from a negligible $0.1 billion in 2020 to $2.8 billion in 2023, according to estimates by Redseer, an advisory firm. All quick commerce companies started with groceries, or by selling stuff such as potatoes, tomatoes, mangoes, apples, rice and oil.

But more recently, like Sanjith discovered, they stock everything from hair dryers and induction cooktops to smart watches and dildos. This has become a headache for Flipkart, one of India’s largest e-tailing companies with revenue of ₹55,823 crore in 2022-23. Selling everything is its domain.

That’s what the company, now owned by Walmart, pioneered in India for over 15 years. But this fortress is under threat. Elara Capital, an investment banking firm, in a report published in April this year, stated that quick commerce is impacting the sales of traditional and e-commerce companies in cities where they are operational.