Zomato plans for Blinkit to deliver more via ecommerce

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Zomato could find itself up against ecommerce marketplaces like Amazon and Flipkart as it explores adding brands across a gamut of new categories to its 10-minute delivery platform, Blinkit. This major push into the fast-growing direct-to-consumer (D2C) space would entail the Gurgaon-based firm building its own supply chain to directly source branded products and manage stock, multiple people aware of the plans told ET. It would deliver these through Blinkit.

Zomato, which is scaling up its quick commerce operations, has “had conversations with individual brand owners for various categories to stock up inventory. This is being seen as a potential long-term growth driver,” one of the persons said.

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This wouldn’t involve the company directly owning inventory, but instead managing the flow of products for D2C brands, like marketplaces do.

Zomato declined to comment on ET’s queries.

As part of the strategy, the Deepinder Goyal-led firm has at least twice attempted to acquire and merge ecommerce enablement firm Shiprocket, said another person briefed on the discussions. Shiprocket, which works with many D2C brands, did not agree to it.


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Zomato bought a stake in Shiprocket during the latter’s