The Big Fight: Ashneer Grover wades into controversy around 10-minute delivery

• Low ticket size and low margin can never be solved through forced low delivery cost, said Ashneer Grover on 10-minute grocery delivery.
• Hari Menon, the CEO of BigBasket said that consumers never wanted quick delivery, and that it was thrust on them.
• Legacy e-commerce companies who have not generated significant net profit have no authority to make remarks on quick commerce, said Aadit Palicha, the co-founder of Zepto.

A war of words has been raging between the heads of quick commerce companies and their non-quick counterparts in the last few weeks. Entrepreneur and startup investor Ashneer Grover too joined in the conversation — insisting that 10-minute quick commerce delivery has no economics. He was commenting on the Blinkit (by Zomato) delivery personnel strike.

“Low ticket size and low margin can never be solved through forced low delivery cost,” Grover tweeted summarising Zomato’s Blinkit journey in three steps — 90 Min (bull run) —> Next day (bear run) —> 10 Min (bull run) —> ??

Quick commerce sector has players like Zepto, Reliance-backed Dunzo, Zomato’s Blinkit and Swiggy’s Instamart. While most of them provide 10-minute deliveries, others too offer lightning-fast deliveries of a wide range of groceries — catching the imagination of consumers.

However, quick commerce has had its set of detractors, and recently Hari Menon, the chief executive officer (CEO) of BigBasket stirred up the controversy with his comments against quick commerce. While BigBasket has its quick commerce avatar called BigBasketNow, it delivers its groceries in 30 minutes.

‘Qcommerce was thrust on customers’

Grover’s negative opinion on the economics of quick commerce delivery has another backer. Last week at the Sharrp Summit, Menon said that consumers never wanted quick delivery, and that it was thrust on them. A sensible business case involves 15-30 minutes to make a delivery, he added.

“Quick commerce has certain dynamics required for unit economics to work, which means you need a high density of orders, it will be cut off at some point. The Bigbasket model will scale, but quick commerce without density doesn't work,” Menon said.

Menon’s comments had irked Aadit Palicha, the co-founder of Zepto and a Stanford dropout, who started the business during the pandemic when he was 19 years old. He hit back at Menon at the very summit saying that legacy e-commerce companies who have not generated significant net profit have no authority to make remarks on quick commerce’s sustainability.

Palicha, who is preparing to take the company public in the next two years, had told Business Insider India in a recent interview that a large part of his ‘dark stores’ are profitable, and the financial metrics of the company are very strong.

Indians take to quick commerce

According to Redseer, Indian consumers are taking to quick commerce, and the adoption is much better than in other countries. India has a quick commerce penetration of 13% versus 7% in China and 3% in EU, respectively. The current market size of quick commerce in India is $5.5 billion – and as of now caters to only 1% of the total domestic grocery market.

Redseer also says that the total addressable market (TAM) of quick commerce is at $45 billion. “Emerging as one of the fastest growing e-commerce models, quick commerce is fundamentally changing consumer purchase behaviour and the grocery retail market on the whole by providing faster delivery options (in as little as ten minutes) as well as a more convenience-driven shopping experience,” said the Redseer report.

Quick commerce players who have set up dark stores that aid quick deliveries, cater to the mid to upper middle-class consumers, and also offer an eclectic mix of products —- in order to stay ahead of the competition from local kiranas.

As of now however, around 70% of all quick commerce purchases are top-up orders. Many platforms have informed that milk, eggs and more are the most searched and purchased items for fast deliveries. Stockup purchases like staples and packaged foods are either purchased offline or through online e-commerce.

Apart from the time and the economics, the war of words around e-commerce is about average order value (AOV). Many players are trying to push for it by offering free delivery for larger sized orders. A few services like Instamart charge different delivery prices for faster delivery of services.

Moreover, the funding winter which has been taking the wind off the sails for most startups has also had its effect on quick commerce players. Moreover, grocery delivery – fast or otherwise – itself is becoming a tougher business to be in. JioMart Express, which offers 90-minute deliveries, has recently shut this service.

At the same time last year, fast delivery service Ola Dash folded up. This, however, can be a blessing in disguise, say analysts. “Competitive intensity has slowed down in quick commerce, which gives incumbents room to build scale moats; and the expectation that the life cycle value of the incremental transacting user in quick commerce could be significantly better than in food delivery at the current stage,” says a recent report by JM Financial.

When the dust settles on the war of words around quick commerce, it will be incumbent on the existing players to prove their detractors wrong by delivering profitable businesses.

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