Fashion qcom startups prioritise experience-led shopping over speed

Fashion quick commerce startups are shifting focus from speed to experience-led shopping, offering features such as discovery, personalisation, try-at-home options to tackle online shopping challenges

While the competition in grocery quick commerce (qcom) is heating up, vertical players are carving out their own playbook. For instance, in the fashion qcom space, startups are shifting the narrative from pure speed to an experience-led shopping journey, essentially combining convenience with sharper discovery and personalisation.

 

According to various fashion players, instant deliveries alone cannot solve the friction points of online apparel shopping, which include overwhelming choice, sizing uncertainty, and high return rates.

Why are fashion qcom startups focusing on experience-led shopping?

Qcom startup ZILO (an acronym for Zero Inconvenience Lifestyle On-Demand) said it focuses on urban affluent customers, as a large part of premium fashion shopping still remains offline. For average order value (AOV) above Rs 1,000, around 83 per cent of shopping happens in physical mode, it said.

 

Padmakumar Pal, co-founder and chief executive officer, and Bhavik Jhaveri, co-founder and chief information officer of the firm, said, “There are reasons why customers are not converting to e-commerce when they want to buy branded, mainline, or higher AOV selection. Our attempt is to just try to influence how they shop, and what we are building is something which neither online nor offline can do independently. We want to give the convenience of online, but the experience of offline.”

 

The platform, which is currently servicing Mumbai, provides doorstep deliveries within 60–90 minutes in addition to an at-home trial time of 30 minutes. The startup recently raised $15.3 million in a Series A funding round led by Peak XV Partners.

What gap do investors see in the online fashion shopping experience?

Reiterating the views shared by ZILO, Sunitha Viswanathan, partner at Kae Capital, said that the online fashion experience has not been meaningfully disrupted in over a decade. “Consumers are overwhelmed with choice, yet often don’t find what they’re truly looking for. That’s the gap we’re excited about. We’re bullish on fashion-led qcom because it brings speed and experience together."

 

She believes India’s fashion market is large and growing, and as consumers get used to on-demand delivery across categories, expectations are shifting towards immediacy even in fashion.

 

The venture capital firm has invested in fashion qcom firm Knot, which also presents features such as virtual try-ons, try-and-buy, and shareable collections, making shopping a social experience.

How big is the opportunity for fashion quick commerce in India?

The size of the branded fashion market in the country is roughly more than $30 billion, and of this, only around 15–20 per cent of sales take place via online channels, according to ZILO founders. Notably, fashion qcom is largely driven by urgency-led occasions, including same-day office wear needs, festive or family dinner requirements, last-minute gifting, and event-specific styling for brunches, pujas, or social get-togethers.

 

As demand for instant fashion picks pace, more players are entering the foray. In fact, traditional grocery qcom platforms are also offering clothing and fashion items such as kurtas, undergarments, ethnic wear, and jewellery. In the pure fashion segment, ecommerce players such as Myntra are also offering instant deliveries with M-Now.

How are brands adapting their fulfilment strategies for qcom?

Like ZILO and other platforms, fashion startup Libas is also piloting qcom in high-density metro markets, and is currently available in the National Capital Region, Mumbai, and Bengaluru. As part of the qcom offering, it focuses on high-intent stock-keeping units (SKUs) such as kurta sets, occasion wear, and last-minute gifting categories, which are growing up to 25 per cent month-on-month.

 

Bhavay Pruthi, senior vice-president of ecommerce and product management at Libas, said: “Purchases tend to be single-SKU and urgent, driven by immediate, need-based intent, with limited time spent on cart-building… There is higher repeat frequency and a lower return rate, as these impulse yet purpose-led buys are more decisive and less exploratory compared to traditional fashion shopping.” Qcom orders comprise 8–10 per cent of its total direct-to-consumer (D2C) orders in three regions where the service is operational.

 

In order to accommodate a variety of choices and fashion tastes on their respective platforms, qcom players are deploying a hybrid fulfilment model. The players thus have company-operated dark stores in addition to store-backed hyperlocal fulfilment.

 

As for expansion plans, while ZILO is targeting expansion to more cities and aims to grow brand partnerships from the current 150 to nearly 250, Libas plans to optimise fulfilment costs from its brand-operated dark stores in the next six months and expand qcom capabilities to its own website and application.