Prioritising speed and convenience, consumers have been increasing their preference for buying small ticket electronic items through quick commerce platforms such as Instamart, Blinkit, and Zepto.
In the electronics category, items such as earbuds, headphones, earphones, chargers, and cables have been seeing an increase in demand through these platforms. Blinkit even has a separate section named ‘Content Creation Tools,’ which has items such as tripods, wireless microphones, and LED lights.
“From our research, the sweet spot for electronics purchases via quick commerce is below Rs 1000. Consumers feel comfortable buying items under this price range through quick commerce, while for higher-priced items, they prefer traditional e-commerce platforms,” said Tarun Pathak, Research Director at Counterpoint Research, a market research and consulting firm.
India’s electronics market reached $155 billion in FY23, as per NITI Ayog. Further, data from market researcher NielsenIQ reportedly indicates that online channels accounted for 34% of the consumer electronics sales in the country this year, an increase from 32% in 2023. Right now, the Indian mobile accessories market, including chargers and data cables, was valued at around $9.83 billion in 2023, and it is expected to reach $17.75 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 8.2% from 2024 to 2030, as per data from Next Move Strategy Consulting.
While the exact data with regard to the sale of electronics via quick commerce is not available, industry sources told Outlook Business that these platforms are eager to expand in the electronics category. As a result, these platforms have been expanding their dark stores.
As a result, these platforms have been focusing on increasing their dark store numbers. As of December 2024, Instamart had 523 dark stores and plans to increase them to over 1,046 by March 2025. Blinkit has 1,007 dark stores, aiming to expand to 2,000 by December 2025. Meanwhile, Zepto has 600 dark stores and plans to reach 1,200 by March 2025.
Brands Prioritise Quick Commerce
Nu Republic, which sells a range of tech products through quick commerce, including earbuds, speakers, smartwatches, and power accessories, has been present on Blinkit, Instamart, and Zepto since March-April 2023.
“We are a quick commerce-first brand. Unlike older companies where quick commerce is a smaller channel, for us, the majority of sales come from it. Around 60% of our sales come through quick commerce platforms, 20-30% come from e-commerce, and 10% come from offline stores,” said Ujjwal Sarin, founder, Nu Republic.
Quick commerce platforms fulfill unplanned demand. For example, if someone loses an earbud or forgets a charging cable at work, traditional e-commerce would take a day to deliver. Quick commerce allows them to get it within minutes, creating a new market. As a result, electronic brand Stuffcool which sells chargers, power banks, has seen an increase in demand via quick commerce. The company, which started on Zepto in May, has seen an increase in their daily sales. “Initially, we sold about 30-40 units per day. Now, in a good month, we are selling about 90-100 units per day, while in a slow month, we sell around 60-80 units per day,” said Dhaval Budhdeo, COO, StuffCool. The brand claims that quick commerce accounts for 25% of their sales.
“Airports, railway stations, and business hubs like Cyber Hub in Gurgaon see high demand for items like chargers and TWS, as travelers often forget these essentials,” said Navkender Singh, Associate Vice President, International Data Corporation (IDC) India.
Bigger brands such as Asus, Noise, and Boult have also collaborated with these platforms. “Quick commerce is a big upcoming challenge for us and a huge focus area for us. So right now, it is about 10%, but we see that moving to about 20% in the next 18 months, and if Amazon and Flipkart really start betting big, then we will see that move into about 30 to 35% as well,” said Varun Gupta, co-founder, Boult.
Challenges Ahead
Along with small ticket electronic items, quick commerce platforms are focusing on large ticket electronic items such as mobile phones and laptops as well. For instance, Blinkit, Zepto, and BigBasket all partnered to deliver iPhones in minutes. Meanwhile, Instamart is focusing on building megapods, which are basically 'megapods'—large-scale dark stores that measure between 8,000 to 10,000 square feet.
However, there are a lot of areas that quick commerce platforms have to focus on before rapidly expanding their category to big-ticket electronic items, as per industry sources. For instance, in terms of logistics, e-commerce and quick commerce platforms are quite different.
With Amazon, brands deliver stock to one major sorting center, and their automated system distributes it across the country. With Zepto and Swiggy, brands have to manually deliver to multiple mother warehouses in different cities. Each city has its own warehouse, which then distributes stock based on demand. This in turn led to additional logistics costs, as brands needed a team to handle deliveries to multiple warehouses.
Quick commerce for high-value electronics is still in the experimental phase, believes Arnold Su, Vice President, Consumer and Gaming PC, System Business Group, ASUS.
“At the moment, we haven’t started working on large electronics with pure quick commerce partners, though we are active with Flipkart Minutes. Storing large electronics in dark stores has logistical challenges, but we are still exploring the business model,” said Su.
Counterpoint’s Pathak believes that higher-priced products require trust and additional incentives like discounts or financing options, which traditional e-commerce platforms currently provide better than quick commerce. The firm also conducted consumer sentiment research, which indicates that consumers are generally comfortable purchasing low-ticket items via quick commerce. For higher-priced products, they prefer to compare discounts and offers on traditional e-commerce platforms. It will be interesting to see how the space for electronics evolves via quick commerce platforms.
