Race for speed: Qcom competition hots up as ecom players enter fast lane

As quick commerce (qcom) rose in the popularity charts, it got corner­ed for ignoring the research & develop­m­e­nt (R&D) route to innovation. It’s also been slammed by traders time and again for threats posed to traditional retail ecosyst­em. Despite everything, quick commerce in India is witnessing a new wave, not just with startu­ps and food delivery players crowdi­ng the market, but also with ecommerce (ecom) majors jumping into the fray where speed is all that matters. Jeff Bezos-founded Amazon, for instance, is the latest to launch its quick commerce service, in select pin codes of Bengaluru. The Indian unit of the American multinational is testing the limits with Amazon Now, its qcom service.

 

The question that has kept the industry abuzz is whether Amazon—the fifth big player in the qcom market—could beat those who have been early players in the sector. Besides Eternal’s Blinkit, Swiggy's Instamart, and Zepto, a pure-play qcom player, another e-commerce major Flipkart (majority owned by Bentonville-headquartered Walmart) ventured into qcom deliveries through Flipkart Minutes about a year ago.

 

While the Amazon Now service currently focuses on delivering groceries and daily essentials in one specific city, other platforms have an assortment rangi­ng from electronics to stationery items, and personal care items to household products in different parts of the country.

 

On the question of Amazon being late to the qcom party, Lloyd Mathias, business strategist and angel investor, said: “Considering that there are already three to four active players, Amazon is partially late. It was obvious that big ecom players would jump in when they saw a share being nibbled away by qcom. Therefore, its entry is late but not surprising.” A recent report by consultancy firm Bain and Flipkart said qcom platforms accounted for over two-thirds of all e-grocery orders.

 

Angad Singh, founding member of Zippee, a qcom logistics firm, said: “Amazon, for the longest time, wanted to reduce the delivery time but initially felt it wasn’t a sustainable model. Now that

 

qcom platforms have proved their sustaina­b­ility and long-term viability from a cost perspective, Amazon is trying to level up.” Zippee is a delivery partner for Amazon.

 

Amazon did not respond to the specific questions asked by Business Standard.

 

Delving into the company’s strengths to successfully penetrate the qcom market, Mathias explained that there are a lot of synergies when it comes to large  ecom players as they already have a well-establis­hed delivery network, large warehouses, and a solid base of consumers whose purch­asing habits they are aware of. And of course ecommerce majors have deep pockets.

 

According to Shailesh Haribhakti, who is part of the board of independent members of Swiggy, Amazon has its cloud service AWS and a deep presence in India for a long. He too refers to the deep pockets of a company like Amazon. “Qcom is about the supply chain, understanding custom­ers, penetrating deep tech applications, and fulfilling demand. The technology is not unknown to Amazon, it’s a question of realigning, repurposing, and ensuring the supply chain starts working,” Haribhakti said. He even argued that the future of all ecom will be qcom and all players, including Amazon, will find their share in the market.

 

Highlighting that Amazon also has a leveraging power with brands, Zippee’s Singh said Amazon would always have a certain bargaining power with brands, even more than players like Zepto and Blinkit because they are the originals in marketplace. “Using this, they can list categories compelling enough for consumers to be attracted to it.” He added that Amazon is likely to follow a strategy of welcoming the first set of brands with certain incentives and listing benefits.

 

Singh said the biggest challenge would be customer acquisition for an Amazon like entrant into qcom as there is no clarity whether the company plans to launch its qcom service as a standalone app. It’s easier to cross-sell qcom offerings to existing customers instead of offering a standalone app, he said.

 

Adarsh Menon, operating partner at Fireside Ventures, who also has the experience of working with Flipkart, said it is largely a function of execution for Amazon: Building capabilities, and expanding their qcom offerings. “The quick commerce business is fundamentally linked to a dark store because it is a hyperlocal way to service a certain catchment. In the past, if Flipkart or Amazon had to win a certain market, they could put up one or two big warehouses but that's not the case with qcom. If you want to service Bengaluru, you need over 100 dark stores because one dark store only services a small catchment. There is a big task of building the supply network of dark stores, getting high demand, and working with vendors to procure the inventory.”

 

Also, Amazon needs to speed up as the incumbents are performing well, according to Haribhakti. “It’s a competitive world, and the competition is going to get more and more intense. They’ll have to quickly rejig the infrastructure and move into the appropriate stock keeping units (SKUs) based on which markets they wish to address,” he said.

 

The consensus seems to be that while Amazon has the potential to be a tough competitor, it still has some catching up to do. The numbers suggest that the market share of qcom companies has grown to $7.1 billion in FY2025 from just $300 million in FY2022. Even as the air is electric with plenty of room for everyone to grow, a recent report by Blume Ventures’ Indus Valley 2025 put out a cautionary note for the qcom originals. It said that existing qcom firms too face stiff competition from large ecom platforms, including Amazon.

 

Let competition play its part, with speed.