Quick commerce not taking away share from kiranas, says Swiggy chief Sriharsha Majety

L to R, Moneycontrol's Chandra R Srikanth, Delhivery's Sahil Barua, SoftBank's Sumer Juneja, Swiggy's Sriharsha Majety

At a time when the quick commerce sector is gaining prominence, founders and investors have been divided on where the industry growth is coming from. While some believe the rapid delivery market is growing at the cost of e-commerce, others say it is eating into the share of mom-and-pop (kirana) stores.

Swiggy group CEO and co-founder Sriharsha Majety, however, believes otherwise.

“Quick commerce can't be taking away share from the kirana,” Majety said while speaking at the Moneycontrol Startup Conclave in Bengaluru.

Quick-commerce is already a $5 billion market in three years’ time and is growing further, analysts at Goldman Sachs had said earlier. Swiggy Instamart, Blinkit and Zepto are main players in the space.

There are only 30-40 million customers who shop on quick commerce, this cohort anyway did not shop from kiranas. They were the online shoppers who are now purchasing from quick commerce platforms.

“Kirana stores are more incremental/top up purchases. They sell sachets and other stock keeping units (SKUs) which are anyway not sold on quick commerce companies. The user base is different,” Majety said.

Sahil Barua, CEO and co-founder of Delhivery also agreed with Majety. Barua, who sits on Swiggy’s board, was also part of the same panel on August 9.

“As quick commerce proceeds, the supply change is going to see a rearrangement. It will impinge on traditional retail,” Barua said at the Moneycontrol Startup Conclave in Bengaluru.

Swiggy and Zomato compete closely with each other in food delivery and quick commerce both. While Zomato went public in 2021, Swiggy is slated to list later this year.

IPO-bound Swiggy benefits from other food delivery and quick commerce companies being listed.

“Having a listed competitor is a good thing and a bad thing. The positives: we don’t have to explain terms like gig worker, on-demand and others to investors. The negatives: we are compared (with others) quarter-on-quarter (QoQ),” Majety said.