India’s fast-growing quick commerce market is getting a new deeply-pocketed entrant: Flipkart, India’s largest e-commerce firm.
Flipkart has started to roll out Flipkart Minutes, its quick commerce service, in parts of Bengaluru. The new service offers customers the ability to have a wide-range of items, from grocery to smartphones, delivered to them within 10 minutes.
Flipkart, owned by Walmart, is the latest entrant to the instant commerce market, which is quickly making inroads in India even as the model has failed in many other markets. The e-commerce firm is offering customers free delivery on orders priced at Rs 100, or $1.2.
Flipkart didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. TechCrunch reported in March that Flipkart was working on a quick commerce offering.
This move comes at a time when the quick commerce sector in India is showing remarkable resilience and growth. The convenience of 10-minute grocery deliveries has struck a chord with urban Indian consumers, leading to encouraging signs for companies like Zomato-owned Blinkit, Zepto, and Swiggy’s Instamart. Goldman Sachs estimates that Blinkit, the leading quick commerce player in India, is already worth half of its parent firm Zomato.
Flipkart leads the e-commerce market in India, but Amazon has stronger grip on urban India customers. The Bengaluru-based startup sees quick commerce as a way to win some of Amazon’s top India customers, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Amazon, for its part, has shown little interest in entering the quick commerce space in India, instead focusing on same-day delivery for Prime members and questioning the quality of products from “fast” delivery services in its marketing campaigns.
Quick commerce players, which rely on hundreds of small warehouses or “dark stores” strategically located near residential and business areas for rapid deliveries, have expanded to numerous categories in recent months, including fashion and electronics.
A recent TechCrunch analysis found that many of Amazon India’s bestselling items were available on quick commerce platforms, meaning that the company stands to lose some business and traffic to quick commerce companies.
This is a developing story. More to follow.
