India's 10-minute delivery obsession meets its first reality check

The nudge by the Union Ministry of Labour and Employment to quick-commerce platforms to move away from the “10-minute delivery” promise signals a shift in India’s ecommerce landscape. By urging platforms to abandon an ultra-tight delivery benchmark, the government has acknowledged that hyper-fast delivery targets create perverse incentives that can compromise road safety and impose extreme stress on delivery partners. In that limited but crucial sense, the move, which follows a nationwide strike by gig workers last month, addresses a genuine and visible concern. 

India’s fascination with instant delivery is not unique. It took root during the pandemic, when lockdowns made rapid doorstep access to essentials a necessity. In many Western markets, however, the frenzy cooled once normal shopping resumed. Several quick-commerce players in the United States (US) shut shop or faded away owing to high costs and poor unit economics. India took a different turn. Delivery timelines kept shrinking, and product catalogues expanded from groceries to gadgets and even prescription drugs. Capital worth billions of dollars was poured into the maintenance of dense networks of dark stores. Though platforms insist that speed is enabled by dark-store density and algorithmic planning rather than faster riding, incentive structures, declining per-order payouts, and milestone-based bonuses mean delivery partners often internalise the pressure to hurry. Further, delays translate into poor ratings, reprimands, or financial penalties. In cities already notorious for congestion, poor road quality, pollution, and high accident rates, the pressure is real. Thus, removing the 10-minute delivery promise signals that worker safety cannot be an acceptable casualty of competitive differentiation in a market where products and prices are largely similar. At the same time, quick commerce is now deeply embedded in urban India’s consumption patterns. Millions depend on it for income, however imperfect. Investors, too, are watching closely. If regulation forces consumers to slow down or workers to be less desperate, does the business model unravel before it turns profitable? Surely, India cannot afford to kill an ecosystem that has the potential to absorb large numbers of workers at a time when formal job creation remains sluggish. 

India’s newly notified labour Codes, extending social security, mandating aggregator contributions, and capping work hours provide a framework to ensure registration, enforce aggregator contributions to the social-security fund, align incentive structures with a 48-hour workweek, payment of overtime, and prevent algorithmic practices that penalise rest, illness, or dissent. Implementation, however, will be the real test. Global experience suggests that quick commerce does not need a hard 10-minute promise to survive; delivery windows can be flexible, speed can be priced transparently, and safety can be built into platform design rather than being left to individual risk-taking. Thus for companies, the message is clear. Growth cannot rely indefinitely on compressing time and cost at the worker’s expense. In fact, what is needed is a clear ecommerce policy, which puts down the basic framework transparently. It can also make provisions for an independent regulator, which can address the interests of all stakeholders. The ecommerce space is expected to grow rapidly; India needs to be prepared.