Amazon, Flipkart, Reliance, BigBasket have unclear quick commerce strategy: BofA Research
With quick commerce channels taking in a significant slice of ecommerce players' cake, experts are unsure if incumbents will be able to hold onto their customers.
Bigger players like Flipkart, Amazon, Reliance and BigBasket are looking to enter the quick commerce space and gain a foothold against established rivals like Zepto, Blinkit, and Instamart, as they fight on categories beyond grocery and daily essentials.
“We remain unclear on how well these new names will gain traction as wider assortment may not be a competitive advantage as even incumbents are expanding SKUs,” noted BofA Global Research in its festive season's sale survey.
While quick commerce players started as a last-minute option for top-up grocery needs and daily essentials, they have now evolved into much bigger storefronts with more categories, expedited timelines, and competitive discounts.
They now stock the latest iPhones and water purifiers, along with daily essentials like milk and bread, stepping foot in categories dominated by ecommerce players.
Tata-backed BigBasket was slightly late to the quick commerce party with its BBNow offering, forcing a good mix of its users to other quicker channels. However, it has managed to create a loyal customer base on slotted delivery, which has a higher average order value. According to the report, it currently holds about 40% share of the online grocery market. It is planning to add smartphones, appliances etc from Croma.
Reliance is following a similar approach as it looks to focus on apparel and electronics apart from groceries. As of yet, the conglomerate hasn’t been able to scale its quick commerce initiative via Dunzo.
“They (Reliance) will not be setting up more dark stores but utilising tech platforms like FYND and Locus for fulfilment and to optimise delivery routes. We remain unsure on how effective this strategy will be,” noted the report.
Ecommerce players Flipkart recently launched its latest quick commerce initiative in select pincodes of Bengaluru after facing scaling issues with its earlier experiments in the space. Amazon has not seen strong growth for online grocery, foraying a little into the channel, but it is now targeting to begin quick commerce foray by the end of the first quarter of 2025.
Edited by Kanishk Singh