Quick Commerce, Quicker Decisions: Is your Brand Strategy Future-ready? 

Summary: Quick commerce has become India’s fastest-growing retail format, reaching 33 million monthly users across 150+ cities. By 2030, it will command 10% of branded retail sales. Brands can capture this opportunity through hyperlocal assortments, premium bundling, strategic promotions, and targeted visibility. Read on to learn how quick commerce platforms help brands triple their growth. 

Introduction – The Rise of Quick Commerce in India 

Quick commerce (which involves hyperlocal supply of products such as groceries, beauty and personal care, pharmaceuticals, and other general merchandise within 30 minutes) has evolved from an emerging channel to a game changer in e-tailing. Rising household incomes and a preference for convenience have led to quick commerce becoming the go-to channel for a growing number of urban consumers. 

As of July 2025, quick commerce has overtaken traditional ecommerce to become the fastest growing retail format with 33 million monthly transacting users (MTUs) across more than 150 Indian cities.  

The exponentially expanding user base of quick commerce platforms makes them an effective channel for retail brands to grow meaningfully. 

The Quick Commerce Consumer: Who They Are and What They Want 

The typical quick commerce user is a Gen-Z (aged 18-28) or millennial (aged 29-44), from an affluent or super-affluent household (with an annual household income over INR 12 LPA), in a metro or Tier-1 city. This cohort of users is distinguished by a preference for convenience and speed, openness to new offerings, and the willingness to spend on indulgence and impulse purchases. 

Quick commerce, which relies on dark stores to service everyday needs in a small radius, is thus the ideal fit for this segment that uses the channel for small-ticket, high-frequency purchases.  

The effectiveness of the channel is already evident: the channel is expected to command 10% of all branded retail sales by 2030, up from 1% in 2024. The landscape is especially promising for groceries and BPC, whose share in quick commerce sales could grow to 10-15% and 15-20% respectively, by 2030. 

Why Quick Commerce Matters for Brands 

As the Q-commerce habit solidifies, users move from impulse buys to intentional, planned purchases. This offers an opportunity for brands to enhance their visibility and garner a loyal customer base on these platforms. However, accomplishing this requires a clear understanding of customer behaviour on the platform and a sharp positioning strategy by the brand.

“The consumer engagement that quick commerce promises is very much general trade-like, whereas the kind of control it provides is similar to e-commerce. It is somewhere in between the two that quick commerce sits, and it needs a very distinct DNA and focus for brands to succeed in this space.”  – Kushal Bhatnagar, Associate Partner

Brands can enhance their visibility on these platforms and build sustained presence by optimising their strategy across product innovation, inventory management, and promotions, among others. 

The Four Levers of Q-Commerce Brand Success 

 1. Build product assortments to serve micro-markets 

Consumer profiles vary widely even within a single city, informed by the demographic makeup, occupation, and income levels. While one locality might be open to experimenting with variety, another might prefer more familiar offerings. Quick-commerce platforms are enabling brands to tailor their product assortments with hourly updates on store-level dashboards, and tools like Zepto Atom, which help brands track sell-through, reposition inventory, and react to hyperlocal demand patterns. 

This offers brands a rare opportunity to innovate. Brands can leverage the granular insights and short feedback loops provided by the platforms to launch new SKUs in select pin codes, test performance within days, and scale fast across cities, turning the platform into a “test-and-scale” flywheel that shortens the runway between product ideation to mass adoption. 

2. Price for value, not volume 

Convenience-driven users on Q-commerce are more time-sensitive than price-sensitive. Their willingness to pay a premium for differentiated offerings makes premiumisation and bundling effective mechanisms to unlock revenue. 

Multi-pack or complementary bundles (for instance, a beverage-and-snack combo) raise the average order value and make logistics more efficient. Premium sub-lines, on the other hand, allow brands to tap into Q-commerce’s “treat yourself” psychology, evident in the rise of zero-sugar beverages and dark chocolate sales on leading platforms. Platforms are reinforcing this trend too, promoting larger baskets and high-ASP SKUs to strengthen their own unit economics. Instead of discounting, brands can deploy smart value tiers, such as “2 for ₹99” offers that sustain margins while rewarding habitual users. 

3. Time promotions to the consumer’s rhythm 

Demand for Q-commerce tends to mirror the workday routines of its majority user base. Orders peak twice daily, usually between 7-11 AM and 6-10 PM, and increase around weekends, match days and paydays. Promotions on the platform must match this rhythm with targeted bursts during “golden windows”, where buyer intent is strong, but platform noise is low. 

4. Build visibility through recall and relevance 

For new, emergent brands, visibility often starts off-platform, through influencer-led videos and social campaigns that drive consumers to the marketplaces. On the other hand, established brands can rely more on on-platform discovery, using features such as sponsored keywords and category takeovers to their advantage. Q-commerce platforms are also experimenting with gamified ad formats and co-branded activations, helping brands create a reward-loop mechanism to lock in the repeat purchase habit among users. 

Quick commerce, in many ways, is a new way of thinking about retail. Thanks to its unique makeup, brands can grow 2.5-3 times from one year to the next by activating their product, price, and promotion levers, and boosting their supply chain capabilities strategically. 

Conclusion – Building a Future-Ready Q Commerce Growth Strategy

Redseer’s playbook for Winning the Quick Commerce Decade elaborates upon these levers as the foundation for sustained brand performance on Q-commerce. Download the playbook, or speak with our retail strategy experts to build your quick commerce growth plan: Kushal Bhatnagar – Associate Partner at Redseer