Kochi: E-commerce businesses are fast transforming into quick-commerce format with a high level of customer adoption forcing companies to lower their delivery time, Hari Menon, co-founder and CEO of BigBasket.com, the online grocery store from the Tata group said in Kochi on Thursday. Hari Menon was speaking at Malayala Manorama Sampadyam Kerala Business Summit 2025 at Grand Hyatt, Bolgatty, Kochi.

Menon termed the transition the biggest movement in the e-commerce sector at the moment.

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He said e-commerce platforms were increasing sizes of their warehouses to ensure quick delivery. He said the sizes used to be 2,000 square feet three years ago and it has now moved to almost 6,000 square feet. “You now have the ability to carry close to 30,000 products. Initially you could just carry 2,000-3,000 products, then it moved up to 6,000-7,000 products. Now you have the ability to sell in 10 minutes or delivering in 10 minutes close to 25,000-30,000 products. That's what is causing a movement in a much larger way from traditional e-commerce to quick commerce,” Menon said.

He said the volume of business in quick-commerce in the country has gone up to roughly Rs 6,000 crore in 12 to 15 months from what used to be around Rs 1,500 crore.

“There are four to five players in this and it is expected to grow three times and so expect the business to move to anywhere between Rs 12,000 to 15,000 crore in a month,” he said.

Menon said the single biggest reason for the transition was the customer adoption was extremely high.

“We waited for almost a year. And we wanted to ensure whether customers are going to like it and whether companies are going to be able to deliver. And the moment it got launched, I think customers just lapped it up. And everybody today wants everything in 10 minutes. If you can't deliver in 10 minutes, then they'll drop it and go somewhere else,” he said.

Menon, however, said that despite the transition to quick-commerce, there is going to be a significant presence of horizontals also. In e-comm, horizontal refers to a single platform selling a wide variety of products from multiple sectors. “Quick commerce essentially offers a platform where you are kind of limited in terms of what you can sell. Your order sizes, what people can pick and what people can deliver are much smaller than what you see in the larger e-commerce space. So you will see co-existence, but you will see more and more movement happening to the quick space where people are moving to,” he said.

Menon said that the assortment in the e-commerce segment has been going beyond grocery.

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