Impact of Quick Commerce on Sustainability

What is Quick Commerce?

Quick Commerce (also referred to as Q-commerce) is a sort of e-commerce platform that focuses on ensuring super-fast deliveries, thereby ensuring customers receive goods within an hour or less.

Companies that provide Quick commerce services depend on local warehouses, or ‘dark stores’ that are strategically placed within urban areas so that rapid speeds can be achieved. Products are housed by these facilities and thus enable quick packing, picking and dispatch of orders.

What are dark stores?

It is a specific warehouse system that carries high-level tasks. Tasks such as products being stored in the correct area, the stock being restocked as and when required, the components being selected and packaged based on the order and then finally shipping it.

Ascertaining the sustainability of Quick Commerce:

The platform of quick commerce is gaining steady momentum due to its quick and streamlined services, the convenience of ordering products or services and also fast and efficient delivery. However, quick commerce is considered to be a risky business proposition because the costs of delivery are high and profits may not be up to the mark, despite providing a faster turnaround time (TAT).

Analyzing the sustainability of Q-commerce can be considered to be a little bit complicated, because though there is a huge demand for speedy delivery, but, it comes with certain challenges related to social, environmental and economic costs.

Globally, Q-commerce companies like Gopuff, Gorillas and Getir have faced a significant amount of struggle in attaining profitability. This is because there are high costs involved in last-mile delivery, dark stores and competitive labor markets.  

When it comes to the strategic relevance of Quick commerce companies in the Indian market scenario, there is a productive upheaval. Companies like Instamart, Swiggy, Zomato, Blinkit, Zepto etc., have been able to perfectly tap the customer’s needs, especially in the urban areas.

To attain the objective of hyperlocal deliveries, the above mentioned Q-commerce companies have partnered with local retail stores of almost all kinds, thereby streamlining the retail ecosystem of the Indian market.