Industry Odisha Bureau,Sep 12: Flipkart Minutes is pushing deeper into non-grocery quick commerce. The festive season will test this broader retail strategy. Fulfilment centres are also expanding rapidly across India. Profitability remains a key focus for the platform.
Quick commerce is moving beyond groceries and daily essentials. Consumers are shifting more discretionary purchases to instant delivery. Smartphones, beauty products and watches are part of that shift. So are electronics and home decor items. Flipkart Minutes is making non-grocery a festive-season priority. This marks its first major push beyond essentials.
Non-Grocery Quick Commerce Reaches New Scale
Non-grocery categories are growing fast across quick commerce. Industry estimates suggest they form roughly a fourth of business. That applies to some large quick-commerce operators. A year earlier, the share was only 6-8%. That comparison highlights how quickly the segment has grown. It does not represent Flipkart Minutes’ own numbers specifically. Flipkart Minutes business head Kunal Gupta discussed the shift. He declined to disclose Flipkart Minutes’ own category mix.
Flipkart Minutes Targets Festive Shopping
Smartphones, electronics, apparel and home decor drive festive shopping. These categories are also central to Flipkart Minutes’ plans. Electronics and apparel remain especially competitive during festive sales. Flipkart Minutes wants a stronger presence in both. Gupta said the platform has big ambitions here. Small appliances form another important part of its strategy.
Beauty and Pet Food Gain Ground
Beauty products have already become a sizeable category. Pet food has also grown into a solid business. Fashion essentials such as watches are performing well. Innerwear is another strong-performing category, Gupta said. Design-led apparel will take longer to build, he added. Large appliances face a similarly gradual timeline. These categories illustrate how demand varies across product types.
Flipkart Minutes Expands Fulfilment Network
Flipkart Minutes has completed two years of operations. It now operates across more than 150 cities. The platform currently runs about 1,000 fulfilment centres. That should exceed 1,200 centres by month-end. Flipkart plans to reach 1,500 centres by December. It aims to add roughly 100 centres monthly. A wider fulfilment network supports a broader product range. More categories require more precise inventory planning nearby.
Scale Meets Profitability Challenge
Rapid expansion brings its own commercial challenges. Gupta said profitability remains a key consideration. Net profit is improving month-on-month, he said. Gross margins are also improving steadily, he added. Economies of scale should support future profitability, Gupta said. The business has grown four times in a year. “Profit is a function of scale,” Gupta said. He did not disclose further financial details. Flipkart is backed by Walmart, the US retail giant.
Quick Commerce Broadens Its Retail Role
This shift places quick commerce closer to conventional e-commerce. Traditional online marketplaces still handle plenty of similar purchases. The two models increasingly overlap rather than replace each other. It does not mean groceries have become less important. Different categories are clearly scaling at different speeds. Some may prove more suited to instant delivery than others.
The coming festive season will test this broader strategy. It will show whether instant delivery can win discretionary spending. Expansion and profitability will both be closely watched. Neither outcome is guaranteed at this stage. For now, Flipkart Minutes is betting on both.
