Swiggy Instamart Opens Offline Experiential Store in Gurugram

Swiggy’s quick-commerce arm, Instamart, has launched a pilot experiential store in Gurugram under the Instamart brand. The outlet is owned and operated by a seller, with Instamart providing branding and related services and all sales proceeds going directly to the seller rather than the platform.

The pilot is a compact store of about 400 square feet, well below 1,000 square feet, and carries a sharply curated assortment of around 100 to 200 SKUs.

This is a small fraction of the tens of thousands of products typically stocked in Instamart’s dark stores. The selection focuses on categories where shoppers often prefer to see or touch products before buying, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, pulses and select offerings from new direct-to-consumer brands, including items from Instamart’s private label, Noice.

Experiment or Strategy?

The initiative is reportedly a discovery-led pilot rather than a strategic move into brick-and-mortar retail. The store is designed to operate near residential communities as a neighbourhood discovery point and as an experiential complement to Instamart’s rapid-delivery network.

There is no confirmed expansion plan, and any wider rollout will depend on the outcome of the pilot, the sources said.

Under the model, sellers run the outlet themselves and retain the sales proceeds, while Instamart provides branding, platform services and visibility. This differs from Instamart’s usual marketplace structure, where customer payments flow through Swiggy before being settled with sellers. The seller-first approach has reportedly appealed to merchants looking to test Instamart branding in categories where in-person experience helps drive purchase decisions.

Context

The experiment comes as quick commerce matures across India and follows Swiggy’s roughly ₹10,000 crore QIP, about half of which the company has said will be deployed to strengthen its quick-commerce business. Evolving market dynamics, including the rise of scheduled deliveries, private labels and larger dark-store formats, have encouraged players to explore hybrid models to reach consumers.

For now, only a single outlet in Gurugram is operational. Industry watchers will track metrics such as sales conversion, customer repeat rates and seller economics to assess whether Instamart scales the format, tweaks commercial terms or retains it as a limited brand experiment. Swiggy has not made any public comment on the pilot.