DARK SECRET

A STORNG NETWORK DARK STORES IS POWERING THE GROWTH PLANS OF QUICK COMMERCE PLAYERS, EVEN AS THEY BATTLE AGAINST MARKET CHALLENGES

- Rachna DhanRajani

RAGHU RAI WHO, is in his early 30s, loves his job. The delivery executive has graduated to a scooter from a bicycle within two months of joining Zepto, a quick commerce start-up. “It’s a satisfying job where I get to meet different kinds of people. It’s thrilling, too, as I race against time to deliver groceries,” says Rai. Then there is Guddu Kumar, 24, a Swiggy Instamart delivery person who moonlights at Zepto. His day starts at 7 am when he dons the orange Instamart jersey and cycles through Byculla, Mahalaxmi, Lower Pare and Prabhadevi areas of Mumbai, delivering groceries. Come afternoon and Kumar undergoes a sartorial change—slipping into Zepto’s purple T-shirt. “Both jobs require me to work about seven hours and that seems doable since both have a solid tech infrastructure. But what stands out is that neither company penalises me over a delay in any order,” he says, smiling.

Rai and Kumar are obviously happy with work and life, but are customers happy with their employers—quick commerce players that promise to deliver anything from fresh strawberries to washing powder at their doorstep in a matter of minutes? To find out, Business Today placed three identical orders of potato chips and fresh strawberries on Instamart, Zepto and Blinkit. All three players have their warehouses, known rather spine-tinglingly as ‘dark stores’, within 1.5 km from the BT office in Mumbai’s Lower Parel.

The first to deliver was Zepto, in a smart 6.35 minutes. It was also the cheapest at ₹150, as Zepto doesn’t charge for delivery. The next to arrive was Blinkit, which delivered our order in about 10 minutes with zero delivery charges as the order value was above ₹149. Else, it would have charged a delivery fee of about