Quick commerce is the new battleground: How brands are adapting, scaling and winning the 10-minute race

Time of India

5 days ago

Bengaluru:
Quick commerce
, once an emerging experiment, has now become a growth engine for new-age brands and legacy players alike. At the recently held panel discussion at ETRetail's
E-commerce
& Digital Natives Summit 2025, titled
'Instant Impact: What Brands Must Get Right in Quick Commerce Ecosystems'
moderated by
Jivraj Singh Sachar, Investor and Podcaster, Indian Silicon Valley
, founders and senior leaders across categories shared how they are decoding the unique opportunities and constraints of this fast-evolving channel.
Vinay Maheshwari, Founder and CEO, The Health Factory
, said his brand was an early mover in quick commerce. 'Traditional trade is very difficult to penetrate when you're doing retail and get that distribution right. It takes brands years and years of experience, and I believe that every new channel gives rise to new brands. And quick commerce is that level playing field where national players and the D2C/new age brands get a level playing ground,' he said.
He emphasised how quick commerce allows for rapid national expansion. 'Now you can do 40 cities in the span of six months. If you've got your operations ready, you've got your manufacturing ready... at least from a distribution standpoint, it gives you leverage into the Indian ecosystem.'
Pallav Bihani, Founder and CEO, Boldfit
, admitted initial scepticism about his fitness accessories selling on 10-minute platforms. 'We never thought people would buy yoga mats on Blinkit… but I think it's the new reality,' he said. 'Quick commerce works well if you've built a lot of awareness elsewhere. Not a great platform to build discoverability unless you're in a very specific use case. But once that awareness is there, it becomes a great channel to capitalise on the demand you've created.'
He warned that brands ignoring this channel could risk being forgotten. 'It's to capture the intent that's there. Brands that are not there on quick commerce right now stand a huge risk of being forgotten.'
Ankur Goel, COO, Epigamia (Drums Food International)
, shared that his experience underscored the platform's strength in consumption and flexibility. 'Quick commerce is a lot less prone to seasonality,' he said, explaining that reduced store footfalls during rains don't affect consumption thanks to at-home delivery. 'If I wanted to eat one cup of Greek yogurt, I will end up ordering a pack of four.'
Highlighting the marketing opportunities unique to quick commerce, he added, 'Epigamia is a breakfast option at 9am, a mid-meal snack at 12pm, a post-workout snack at 6pm, a dessert post 10pm. The flexibility with quick commerce is that I can tailor my communication depending on the actual use case, a luxury traditional retail doesn't offer.'
Rahul Kumar Srivastava, COO, Parag Milk Foods
, noted that while 95 per cent of their business still comes from traditional channels, quick commerce is seeing exponential growth. 'We are still learning,' he said. 'We manufacture ghee under Govardhan, cheese under Go, farm-to-home milk under Pride of Cows, and sports nutrition under Avvatar. Each has a preferred channel, but we're seeing tremendous growth on quick commerce across categories from milk to paneer, yoghurt to flavoured milk.'
He highlighted operational challenges. 'We have to manage micro inventory for very hyperlocal fulfilment. Milk has a two-day shelf life, curd is 15 days, paneer is 20… how are you going to handle 40-50% growth with perishable commodities?'
Akshay Gulati, Co-Founder and CEO, Slikk
, which operates in fashion and lifestyle, discussed how apparel presents unique challenges for Q-commerce. 'Fashion and lifestyle is an input-difficult business,' he said. "Generally, other verticals are output difficult. But here, supply chain is complex, with brands having thousands of SKUs.'
Since quick commerce is real-estate constrained at the backend, SKU selection becomes critical. 'You have to be super careful in terms of what you put in your dark store and whether it's loved by customers… it's very important to get that Pareto right,' he said, referring to the 80/20 rule of sales concentration. 'The biggest challenge is replan. Fashion has a longer lifecycle. It's capital intensive, recovery is slower. So, we've focused deeply on understanding supply chain better than traditional marketplaces.'
Aniket Shah, Co-Founder and CEO, Swish
, a brand focused on 10-minute food delivery, spoke about competing in a space dominated by giants like Zomato and Swiggy. 'Food has the highest product-market fit when it comes to 10 minutes,' he said. 'Everyone wants everything from chai to dessert, delivered quickly.'
To build a differentiated product, Shah focused on infra-first innovation. 'Even if there's one bad experience, not just on time but on quality, people just tend not to order again. So consistency and quality is very important. We have started imagining how the infrastructure for kitchens should be built so that food can be prepared faster."