How to balance product availability in quick commerce stores
In India, the quick commerce market is expected to reach $5 billion by 2025. Categories like food, home and personal care products, pet items, and medicines are primarily expected to see rapid growth.
The retail industry has been moving rapidly, and taking the limelight is the newest player, quick commerce. From two-day delivery to 10-minute delivery—quick commerce has changed the way people shop.
Its quick service and localised availability have resulted in instant gratification for a consumer’s insatiable hunger.
In India, the quick commerce market is expected to reach $5 billion by 2025. Categories like food, home and personal care products, pet items, and medicines are primarily expected to see rapid growth.
With the fast-paced moving market and swift delivery commitment, the bottom line for every brand has been to provide the best quality customer experience. But with ample opportunities, challenges too arise.
The nature of a quick commerce business varies from the traditional ecommerce platforms. In the case of ecommerce platforms, a delivery getting delayed may not significantly affect a customer’s experience. Whereas, quick commerce platforms have no room for delays, even if it is for a few minutes.
Imagine if the products go stock out or are not available in the middle of the shopping spree of a customer, what can be the impact?
The horror of stock-outs
Product availability is one of the key issues in the fast-evolving quick commerce sector. Inventory management plays a crucial role in ensuring a customer doesn’t have to face a stock-out while making a purchase. However, the way quick commerce works, having a product go out-of-stock while shopping means:
- Losing a customer to your competition: One of the most influential factors to drive a customer away is a stock-out situation, which causes frustration and drives a customer to the competitor’s store.
- Loss of reputation: Poor inventory management can cause long- and short-term losses for a brand. If a brand’s product remains out-of-stock for a longer time, it negatively impacts customer experience. With this, the brand loses the opportunity as purchase decisions are made very quickly on quick commerce platforms.
Technology meets data
To cater for the fast-paced quick commerce industry, technology and data play a pivotal role. With the right technology and intelligence, brands can implement a data-driven strategic approach to identify gaps, monitor in-stock and out-of-stock products, and curb the stock-out situation.
By leveraging the power of data, brands can look for products going to go out-of-stock and strategies for the products in demand. Brands can also leverage the power of real-time data to optimise delivery routes, predict demand, and provide customer-centric product recommendations.
The right balance of data and technology can enable brands to curate personalised experiences for customers and reduce the unseen hurdles of quick commerce platforms.
Way forward
To avoid stock out is impossible, but minimising is possible. The competition is fierce among brands on quick commerce platforms, and without the right technology, it is difficult to outshine the crowd.
To meet swift customer decisions and reduce the issues of availability, brands need to be on their toe and take faster actions with intelligence solutions to stay on top of real-time changes.
Amit Relan is the Co-founder and CEO of .
Edited by Suman Singh
(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of YourStory.)