E-commerce major Flipkart’s foray into quick commerce will be spearheaded by Hemant Badri, senior vice president and group head of supply chain.
The company is currently establishing a chain of dark storefronts with the goal of launching its rapid commerce solution in July.
This comes at a time when the heat is turning up in the sector, where apps that provide deliveries of nearly anything in 15–29 minutes have transformed from a useful tool to an essential one in just over three years.
Badri, who has been with the Walmart-backed e-commerce major for over three years, has spent over a decade at Unilever and more than eight years at Colgate Palmolive.
According to a recent report by Goldman Sachs, quick commerce start-up Zepto has surpassed the annualised sales milestone of $1 billion within 29 months of its inception.
The other players in the sector, Blinkit and SoftBank-backed Swiggy Instamart, are also gaining market share, now standing ‘close to that of the number 2 player,’ the report added.
The move by Flipkart comes at a time when e-commerce companies, such as Blinkit and Zepto, are increasing the number of stock keeping units (SKUs) in their dark stores to include non-grocery categories like toys, kitchen appliances, apparel, and electronics.
Recently, Swiggy combined its mall offering—where it was testing the sale of non-food items like clothes, electronics, and kitchen appliances—with its quick commerce subsidiary Instamart. The company is getting ready to go public later this year, and in the coming months, draft listing documents should be submitted.