We are building an internet supermarket chain: Zepto's Aadit Palicha

Zepto is no longer just a 10-minute delivery service but is evolving into a full-fledged internet supermarket chain, offering a gamut of products from fresh produce to electronics and apparel, said company’s co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Aadit Palicha. The catalogue of the quick commerce unicorn currently spans over 50,000 products.

 

In a conversation with Garry Tan, CEO of incubator and investor firm Y Combinator, Palicha said, “People think of us as a 10-minute delivery provider here. If you go into the ground in India, we’re sort of looked at more as a hyperlocal Amazon — not just good serviceability to the customer but also great selection, great quality and great pricing. We’ve almost 45,000–50,000 products that you can order on Zepto, everything from oranges and apples all the way to earphones and hoodies. We’re basically building out an internet supermarket chain.”

 

Palicha added that Zepto takes control of all the four pillars that define customer experience — speed, quality, selection, and price. “As a result of owning it (the four pillars), we’re able to do 50,000 products, control the entire supply chain on the back-end, and get better quality of produce and price for customers.

 

So, the customers’ thinking of us as 10-minute delivery players got our foot in the door, but now they’re basically thinking of us as their go-to supermarket chain in India or their go-to one-stop shop,” Palicha added.

 

Zepto is currently present in 50 cities in the country and delivers an average of 1.5 million orders a day. The company has also crossed the annualised revenue run rate (ARR) of $200 million this year — a fivefold jump from last year.

 

“If you look at our advertising business, we have gone from a $40 million ARR in ad revenue last year to just crossing $200 million ARR this year. We are innovating in exciting fashion. We built our entire relevance engine, bidding, attribution, campaign management and automated keyword suggestions — I think we’ve built out a really high-quality, performance ad stack out of India,” Palicha said.