Flipkart on observe to open 800 darkish shops by December as fast commerce booms

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Currently working in 17 cities throughout India, Flipkart Minutes is specializing in deepening its attain inside its top-performing urban centres by extending its service to extra pin codes. 

The agency—which entered fast commerce a lot later than its friends—will proceed increasing aggressively to meet up with its rivals and seize a share of the rising market.

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“We’ll go the place the client is. We have constructed the whole lot from the sustainability perspective and we’re very dedicated to [delivering in] 10 minutes as nicely,” Kanchan Mishra, vice-president at Flipkart, mentioned in an interview.

Minutes has helped enhance Flipkart’s general buyer retention with a bigger variety of folks now transacting on the platform extra steadily.

“What we’ve got seen is fast commerce has enabled us to develop our pie in sure classes. We are capable of convey clients again extra typically, and we’re capable of make our clients purchase a a lot wider set of merchandise from the platform. So it has been including to the retention of our buyer base, including to the spend per buyer on the platform and including to the transaction per buyer on the platform.”

Flipkart launched Minutes in August 2024 in choose pockets of Bengaluru, a lot after its opponents Swiggy Instamart, Zomato-owned Blinkit, and Zepto. Entering late within the recreation, Flipkart had tons to make amends for—proper from establishing darkish shops to matching supply velocity.

Quick commerce is projected to develop at over 40% yearly by way of 2030, pushed by enlargement throughout classes, geographies, and buyer segments, per a report by Bain & Co. 

While fast commerce started with grocery, 15–20% of its gross merchandise worth now comes from classes akin to normal merchandise, cellphones, electronics, and attire. Over two-thirds of all e-grocery orders and a tenth of general e-retail {dollars} are being spent on these platforms.

To make certain, India’s e-retail market touched $60 billion in 2024, per March 2025 estimates by Bain & Co. Meanwhile, quick-commerce gross merchandise worth touched $6-7 billion in 2024, with over 20 million annual energetic buyers.

“The want for velocity for our clients could be very evident. We have seen that fast commerce has helped usher in clients extra typically and allow them to purchase a a lot wider set of merchandise from the platform. It has been including to the retention and spends per buyer,” Mishra mentioned.

“Quick commerce is all about constructing on strengths. Building the hyperlocal and day by day necessities enterprise are the 2 the important thing issues to deal with. And that is a particularly execution-heavy enterprise,” mentioned Kabeer Biswas, the newly-appointed head of Flipkart Minutes.

Daily necessities account for 90% of Minutes’ transactions, whereas large-ticket gadgets like electronics and wonder and private care merchandise dominate by way of order values, Mishra mentioned.

Flipkart’s fast commerce arm has additionally benefited from hyperlocal logistics that’s now obtainable in commoditized kind in India, serving to it transfer forward regardless of making a late begin in comparison with its fast commerce friends, Mishra added.

“With hyperlocal density, sure we’ve got had a late begin, however on condition that it’s virtually commoditized throughout the nation, we’ve got been capable of construct first rate capability,” Mishra mentioned.

“What we see has been enjoying is the power of the platform that powers us. We have seen very sturdy synergies coming in from our shared provide chain and logistics community, the place we share warehouses and the logistics community that powers Flipkart. We have seen very sturdy early adoption coming in from clients as nicely,” Mishra famous.

Quick commerce—characterised by excessive money burn and unsustainable unit economics—usually requires constant funding. While Flipkart will proceed to infuse capital to increase the service, it doesn’t appear to be a lot bothered about money burn.

“What performs favourably for us is we’ve got an enormous base of consumers already obtainable to us that makes our price of buyer acquisition very, very environment friendly. We have already got 75% of the availability chain investments deployed from the bigger Flipkart enterprise. That makes our journey to growing our footprint quite a bit simpler on the fee entrance. We even have a wealthy expertise platform that is constructed and working at scale, which makes go-to-market for us simpler,” Mishra added.

Naturally, competitors in fast commerce is heating up, prompting firms to bulk up investments in increasing darkish shops and hiring extra personnel to maintain supply timelines brief. In the third quarter of FY25, Zomato mentioned it would proceed to speed up Blinkit’s enlargement, burning money to succeed in 2,000 darkish shops a yr forward of goal even because the quick-commerce enterprise pulled down its revenue.

Net revenue of Zomato (rebranded as Eternal) noticed a pointy decline of 78% year-on-year (y-o-y) in January-March quarter to ₹39 crore, largely on account of the accelerated investments in its quick-commerce enterprise Blinkit. Swiggy’s web loss widened to ₹1,081 crore from ₹555 crore a yr in the past.

Established firms akin to Zepto, Blinkit and Swiggy Instamart are already sitting on hundreds of darkish shops. Blinkit crossed the 1,000 darkish retailer milestone early this yr. Rival Swiggy added over 300 darkish shops for Instamart, its fast commerce service, taking its retailer rely as much as 1,021.