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May 27, 2026
Writankar Mukherjee and Aanya Thakur, Economic Times
Kolkata/Mumbai, 27 May 2026
Quick commerce has become the dominant online sales channel for India’s top fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies, with Dabur India and Britannia Industries among others now deriving up to 75% of their digital sales from 10-minute delivery platforms.
Industry executives said quick commerce is reshaping consumer buying habits and increasingly cannibalising sales from all other channels, including ecommerce platforms, modern trade and kirana stores, even as large online marketplaces and retailers expand into the segment.
Latest data from companies including ITC Ltd, AWL Agri Business, Tata Consumer Products and Parle Products showed quick commerce accounted for 60-75% of their total online sales in FY26, rising sharply from less than half a year earlier.
For Britannia and Tata Consumer Products, quick commerce now contributes more than 70% of online sales, while the share climbed to 75% for Dabur in the fourth quarter ended March from 50% in the December quarter.
Executives said expanding assortments and demand for instant replenishment are accelerating the shift. “Quick commerce has been gaining ground with several ecommerce companies such as BigBasket, Amazon and Flipkart, as well as retail chains like Reliance Retail, entering the space,” said Mayank Shah, vice-president at leading biscuits maker Parle Products. “Given consumers’ demand for convenience and immediate replenishment, quick commerce has emerged as a strong growth opportunity for them.”
Quick commerce accounted for 65% of online sales of Parle Products and AWL Agri Business last fiscal, compared with 50% and 45%, respectively, in FY25. ITC derived 58% of its online sales from this channel in FY26.
Frequent Purchases
Grocery-shopping are now centred around frequent top-up purchases through the week.
“Quick commerce has facilitated a grocery shopping habit which already existed – more frequent purchases. These companies are now also looking to improve profitability by expanding into higher-margin and impulse-driven categories,” said Devangshu Dutta, founder and CEO of Third Eyesight, a consultancy in consumer space.
While the channel is already significant for FMCG companies in the top 8-10 cities, it is expanding rapidly into smaller towns as operators such as Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy Instamart widen their footprint.
Premium Push
The channel has also allowed companies to push premium products, executives said.
“While on marketplaces and traditional e-commerce platforms we were heavily skewed towards staples, the shift to q-commerce is helping us premiumise our assortment and sell far more indulgent categories,” Britannia Industries chief commercial officer Vipin Kataria told analysts earlier this month.
The transition has led to a threefold increase in sales of adjacency categories for the biscuits and dairy products maker, he said.
Kataria expects quick commerce’s contribution to the company’s total online sales to rise to 85% from 70% currently.
Most FMCG companies reported 70-100% year-on-year growth in quick commerce sales in FY26, making it the fastest-growing channel for the industry for the past two to three years. Executives expect the trend to continue.
Dabur India global chief executive officer Mohit Malhotra said beverages, foods, personal care and home care are currently the strongest-performing categories in this channel.
Saugata Gupta, managing director of Marico, said quick commerce is likely to be especially dominant in foods, while specialised ecommerce players such as Myntra and Nykaa remain strong in personal care.
The maker of Parachute, Saffola and Livon brands is strengthening its quick commerce supply chain through digitisation, automation and AI-based forecasting, Gupta said.
(Published in Economic Times)
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May 1, 2026
Yuthika Bhargava & Vikash Tripathi, Outlook Business
Mumbai, 1 May 2026
For generations of Indians, the word Tata hasn’t just been a brand, it has been a permanent resident in our homes. Think back to the kitchens of your childhood. It was the familiar packet of Tata salt, the Desh ka Namak, that seasoned every meal. It was the steaming cup of Tata tea that signalled the start of the day for elders at home.
In every Indian household, the name represents trust and legacy.
Yet, when N Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons, wanted to hire Whirlpool India’s head Sunil D’Souza to lead Tata Global Beverages (TGBL) in September 2019, he got a shock refusal.
Who in their right minds wouldn’t want to join a Tata company?
Well, D’Souza hadn’t heard much about TGBL. In fact, his colleague at Whirlpool India had called it a “sleepy company”.
At the time, TGBL’s revenues were a meagre ₹7,408cr compared to close to ₹50,000cr and ₹40,000cr logged by fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) heavyweights ITC and Hindustan Unilever (HUL), respectively, in 2018–19.
Experts had noted TGBL had not much to show in terms of major product innovation for years. Primarily a tea and coffee company, it was locked in a low-growth cycle.
In 2018, various analysts had remarked that TGBL’s growth was muted as it wasn’t selling anything beyond tea and coffee.
At TGBL’s annual general meeting on July 5, 2018, Chandrasekaran said the company would exit loss-making subsidiaries and focus on profitable ones that can be scaled up. “Even though in volume terms, the company continued to be number one in the Indian market, the same was not true in value terms,” he said.
So, D’Souza’s immediate “no way” to the job offer was justified. TGBL wasn’t on his radar or anyone’s at the time.
But the headhunter convinced him to meet Chandrasekaran.
This meeting, says D’Souza, made all the difference for him. He recalls the Tata Sons’ chairman saying “I have the money. But I don’t have the team to run it.”
But the clincher for him was Chandrasekaran’s larger plan to foray into the FMCG space and the intent to disrupt the market.
In December 2019, Tatas announced D’Souza’s appointment as managing director and chief executive effective April 2020. One more important addition to this FMCG team was Tata Sons’ Ajit Krishnakumar as chief operating officer.
What followed was the duo’s visits to Mumbai, Bengaluru and Gurgaon. They walked to distributor offices and kirana stores and sat through market visits. “We drew out in great detail what we wanted this company to look like,” says Krishnakumar.
The mandate from Chandrasekaran was simple. He wanted a company commensurate with the Tata name, one that shared the same shelf space as the likes of HUL and ITC.
Humble Beginnings
The mission to become an insurgent company in the FMCG space kickstarted with the formation of Tata Consumer Products (TCPL) in February 2020 by merging TGBL’s tea and coffee units with Tata Chemicals’ salt and pulse businesses.
However, with established FMCG rivals like HUL, ITC and Nestlé India, D’Souza and Krishnakumar had their tasks cut out. The competition had a century of headstart in India.
Within the Tata group itself, TCPL ranked eighth by revenue in 2019–20, behind Tata Motors, TCS, Tata Steel, Tata Power, Titan, Tata Communications and even Tata Chemicals.
But “things couldn’t get any worse than this, right? We were already at the bottom of the heap in FMCG. You could only get better,” recalls D’Souza about his mindset at the time (see pg 24).
Building a brand name as a Tata company opens doors. But competing is another. Could this new company take on HUL, Nestlé and ITC?
TCPL started by trimming the portfolio, streamlining the consumer products businesses spread across five continents, from India and the US to the UK, Canada, South Africa and Australia.
In Australia, the company held a 7% share of the tea market but was also running an out-of-home coffee dispensing business that was losing millions of dollars. It was shut down in December 2020.
In the US, a food-service joint venture, including a tea factory and a distribution unit, was disposed of as well in March 2021.
“We had 45 legal entities. That’s not tenable,” D’Souza says. “We exited areas where we didn’t see value. The focus clearly shifted to not just the topline, but margins.”
Six years later, TCPL’s entity count stands at 25 and is well on the way to the target of 18 entities.
What stood out in the next six years is TCPL’s sole focus to dominate the food and beverages (F&B) category. The company’s mantra: think big, move fast.
By late 2020, once the initial scramble post the merger had settled, TCPL ran a strategic exercise called Project Falcon. The result was a playbook: categories to foray into, categories to stay out of, where to build and what to buy.
The year 2021 provided a starting point for TCPL. In March that year, the United Nations officially declared 2023 as the International Year of Millets, acting on a proposal from India. The country being the largest producer of millets, accounting for 20% of global production, wanted to raise awareness of millet’s role in improving nutrition and creating sustainable market opportunities.
The timing was fortuitous for TCPL. In 2021, its first acquisition, Soulfull, was a millet-based health-food brand. This ₹155.8cr deal gave Tatas a foothold in a category it couldn’t have credibly entered on its own.
Within three years of acquisition, Soulfull’s distribution had grown from 15,000 outlets to 300,000, carried on the back of the Tata’s existing network.
Three years later, in January 2024, when TCPL announced two deals with combined worth of ₹7,000cr in quick succession, its stocks fell.
The market wasn’t convinced initially. TCPL had just committed roughly 40% of its annual revenue to two brands it did not build. At the time, it was a new player with its core business running on single-digit margins.
Analysts at Ambit Capital estimated the acquisitions would cut 2025–26 earnings by roughly 10%.
The first, a ₹5,100cr deal, was to buy Capital Foods, the company behind Ching’s Secret.
The second was a wellness play, a ₹1,900cr cheque for Organic India, a Lucknow-based brand with a devoted following in the US.
D’Souza had faith in these big-cheque acquisitions. “We are not playing this game for the next one or two years. We do these acquisitions knowing that we put money there. It will bear out over a period of time.”
Ching’s Secret had spent decades building the desi Chinese category in urban Indian homes almost single-handedly—the Schezwan chutney, the noodles and sauces.
As for Organic India, it had a network of farmers across Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand, a manufacturing facility in Lucknow and decades of Ayurvedic credibility in the American wellness market. It was built over years of relationships that TCPL simply did not have and could not quickly acquire.
And the numbers weren’t disappointing. By the third quarter of 2025–26, Capital Foods and Organic India together were generating ₹354cr in quarterly revenue, up 15% year on year, at gross margins of roughly 48%, well above TCPL’s blended average of 43%.
Motilal Oswal expects integration costs to ease substantially by 2026–27, after which the margin story should become clearer.
Fight for Shelf Space
From the get go TCPL was clear about the categories it wanted to enter and to avoid as well.
It didn’t want any stake in the basic edible-oil segment. This shelf had far too many players led by the likes of Fortune and Saffola.
But cold-pressed oil was a different ballgame. Consumers here were buying into a health claim with no way to verify if the product was trustworthy. “The Tata name does the magic there,” says D’Souza.
In August 2023, TCPL launched a range of cold-pressed oils under its brand Tata Simply Better, a new brand that was launched in 2022 to enter the plant-based mock-meat category.
The logic: find the trust deficit, fill it with the four-letter Tata name, became the basis for every category TCPL considered entering.
The sweet spot for the insurgent company was categories that were fragmented, where consumers didn’t fully trust what they were buying and where a credible brand could change the equation.
Biscuits was another category that TCPL gave a skip.
Britannia and Parle owned 56% of the market, built over decades of backward-integrated manufacturing and distribution muscle.
This restraint, wrote Motilal Oswal, in a recent note, is “rare in Indian FMCG”. Categories like biscuits, snacks, colas and base edible oils are permanently off the table, crowded segments where the Tata brand adds no meaningful trust-led differentiation. “Such portfolio discipline is a positive indicator of capital allocation quality,” the note observes.
Built organically, cold-pressed oil is now running at an annual revenue of ₹350cr. Dry fruits, another category Tatas entered with the same trust deficit logic is at a ₹300cr run rate.
What differentiates TCPL from other FMCG players?
The categories that Tatas have built or bought into are still being defined. HUL and Nestlé, on the other hand, are dominant in mature markets where penetration is already high. HUL is buying established brands in categories it rules, plugging gaps in existing portfolios. TCPL is buying into categories it has never played in, at scale, while the core business is still being built.
Whether this is disciplined offence or over-extension is a question the next two years of integration will answer.
Even before acquisitions came into play, among the first things D’Souza and Krishnakumar did was to build accountability. There had been no one person who owned a category (tea, salt or pulses) from manufacture to sales.
They created category leaders who were responsible for the product’s profit and loss, bar the fixed costs. Functions that did not exist were created.
In 2020, Tata Salt was present in nearly 2mn retail outlets across India. TCPL’s own salespeople directly visited just 150,000 of them. The remaining 1.85mn stores were being supplied through a chain of middlemen, called super stockists or consignee agents.
These middlemen picked up Tata Salt in bulk from big distributors and moved it onward through their own networks. No one from TCPL knew what was selling fast, what wasn’t or what product a rival had placed on the shelf just two rows away.
“That shows the strength of the brand and also the lack of distribution reach,” says D’Souza. In FMCG, this gap between a brand’s total reach and its direct reach is called the wholesale multiplier. It measures how many outlets are stocking your product for every outlet you directly supply. A multiplier of five is considered normal. TCPL’s was 15, a number almost unheard of.
This meant TCPL had no direct relationship with over 90% of the shops and no mechanism to introduce anything new in those shops.
“There was this big layer [of middlemen] in each state. We removed that entire layer. That layer alone was about 1.2% in terms of cost. Then we appointed proper distributors, recruited the right people and rebuilt the distribution system,” says D’Souza. This was a saving of 36 paise on every 1kg pack of Tata Salt with an MRP of ₹30.
Rebuilding the entire distribution ecosystem took six to seven months. The distributor base was cut from 4,500 to around 1,500–1,600. These distributors were now carrying the full portfolio, reporting directly to TCPL. The sales force was expanded by 30%.
The results were quick. TCPL’s direct outlet reach stands at approximately 2.3mn today from roughly 500,000 in 2019–20. The total reach is 4.4mn outlets now.
“There are two key benefits to getting closer to the retailer. It supports margins and gives you better visibility into what’s happening at the point of sale,” says Arvind Singhal, chairman of The Knowledge Company, a management-consulting company.
Progress is real. But TCPL has miles to go. HUL reaches more than 9mn outlets, built over nine decades. ITC reaches 7mn. Nestlé 5.2mn. India has roughly 12–15mn kirana stores.
“The whole premise was to create a distribution funnel through which you can then push different products,” says D’Souza.
Bump in the Road
The first real test for TCPL was whether the idea of pushing new products through the distribution funnel would work.
Pradeep Gupta, a kirana store owner in Varanasi, has been a witness that it worked. Six years ago, two products were always on his shelf: Tata Salt and Tata Tea Premium. He didn’t need a salesperson to tell him to stock them.
Now, new products from Tata Sampann spices to Ching’s Secret sauces and Soulfull rusk are on the shelves of Gupta’s tiny store. TCPL’s distribution network made it happen. A distributor who had built his business around Tata Salt would now also handle Ching’s Secret. A salesperson who knew how to move a commodity would now pitch a branded sauce.
But not everyone was happy. The All India Consumer Products Distributors Federation (AICPDF) went up in arms against TCPL in 2025. Distributors were protesting excessive targets, stocks were piling up in warehouses and damaged goods sitting for months with no settlement.
The mismatch was structural. Salt moves through wholesale with 80% of it never seeing a retail salesperson. Most of the newer growth products like Ching’s Secret are sold almost entirely through direct retail.
Running both through the same distributor was asking a man who sold salt by the tonne to also build a market for Schezwan chutney.
The AICPDF president Dhairyashil H Patil explains what went wrong. “Salt is typically sold in large volumes. Products like Tata Sampann [a packaged pulses brand launched in 2017 under Tata Chemicals] and tea are the opposite, only about 8–10% goes through wholesale. After the merger with Capital Foods, there was a complete mismatch.”
Distributors built around salt did not find it viable to handle retail-heavy products. “Most Tata distributors derive 60–70% of their turnover from salt, so their focus remains there,” adds Patil.
TCPL eventually had to take back damaged goods sitting with distributors for six to eight months. D’Souza’s response was to separate the networks entirely.
TCPL’s growth businesses like Ching’s, Soulfull and Organic India had their own distributors and sales teams in just three months. “For any other company, it would have taken at least a year or more,” D’Souza says.
Also, the portfolio TCPL had inherited gave its own answer to what the distribution funnel could carry. Sampann, a “hobby for Tata Chemicals”, arrived at the merger doing ₹150–200cr in revenue. In 2025–26, Sampann is expected to touch ₹1,700–1,800cr, with pulses alone contributing ₹1,000 crore.
“The whole DNA of the company is to stay agile and make sure to move at full speed,” says D’Souza.
Fast and Furious
TCPL moved at full speed indeed when it came to trends. In May 2019, Beyond Meat, a company that made plant-based burgers from pea protein, listed on Nasdaq. Its stock more than doubled on the first day.
Within months, McDonald’s was testing a meatless McPlant and KFC was piloting plant-based chicken. Plant-based meat looked like the future of food.
TCPL bought into the trend. In 2022, it launched plant-based mock meat under the Tata Simply Better brand. However, the global buzz died sooner than expected. Two years later, TCPL exited the category.
The exit is not the point. What matters is that the product took 150 days from concept to shelf. TCPL had built something that would have been impossible two years before.
Mock meat required food science to replicate the texture of meat from plant protein, process technology, a team of chefs, food scientists and packaging engineers.
Capabilities were built from scratch. In the beginning, the R&D team was just 10–15 people. Today, it operates across three centres: Bengaluru as the research and packaging science hub, Mumbai for food innovation and product development, and Barabanki in Uttar Pradesh, anchoring the wellness work after the Organic India acquisition.
The team remains lean, around 60 people, roughly one-third the size of comparable FMCG rivals, estimates Vikas Gupta, R&D head at TCPL.
When D’Souza arrived in 2019, just 0.8% of TCPL’s revenue came from new product launches. The industry benchmark is 5%. TCPL was nowhere close. Today, that number stands at roughly 5%.
Onkar Kelji, research analyst at Indsec Securities, a brokerage firm, frames the economics of the chase: the early returns on innovation can be thin, he says, as companies push products aggressively and launch on e-commerce where margins are typically lower than general trade. “But if these products scale, they deliver better margins over time.”
Across the industry, the contribution of newly launched products has generally stayed under 5%. With acquisitions, that mix is expected to rise, notes Kelji.
In FMCG, innovation is not only about launching entirely new categories. It is also about rethinking what already exists. “We were singularly focused on vacuum-evaporated iodised salt,” says D’Souza.
The thinking that replaced it was simpler. “Give the consumer what they want. Plain salt. Salt with iron, with zinc. Low sodium for the health-conscious. Himalayan rock salt for the premium buyer. Sendha [during Navaratri]. One product became a portfolio,” adds D’Souza.
A patented granulation technology was developed for double-fortified salt, solving a long-standing industry problem of how to add iron to iodised salt and keep it stable.
TCPL also produced the Tata Coffee Cold Coffee liquid concentrate, a first-of-its-kind product in the Indian market that lets consumers make cold coffee at home without equipment.
The first 100 product launches after the merger took three-and-a-half years. The next 100 took 16 months. At one point, the company was turning out a new product every week, each one requiring its own supply chain, packaging, shelf-space negotiation and own sales story.
For a company that was criticised in 2018 for launching almost nothing new for years, this was a different metabolism entirely. “It’s easier when you are doing everything from scratch, says D’Souza, adding “As soon as we see a trend, we are on top of it and running with it.”
E-commerce is a good example of how TCPL, weeks into its merger, took on the very real challenge of lockdown and built a new digital vertical to boast of.
Lessons from Pandemic
In March 2020, most Indians had online grocery apps on their mobile phones. These were rarely used. But the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown reshaped this landscape.
BigBasket’s servers strained with massive order volume surge. Dunzo crashed repeatedly. Amazon Fresh ran out of delivery slots. Millions of urban Indians were struggling to restock their kitchen shelves.
At the time, TCPL’s entire e-commerce operation was one person’s part-time responsibility. The southern regional sales head looked after e-commerce. TCPL had to race against time to build a digital channel. And D’Souza’s team built it fast.
E-commerce became a dedicated function with its own head. A modern trade team was created. Every new product launch went digital first. E-commerce gave TCPL something general trade never could: unfiltered data on what actually works.
While the company’s overall innovation-to-sales ratio was 3.4% by 2022–23, it was 10% on e-commerce. Products that proved themselves online were then pushed into general trade.
“The beauty of e-commerce is that it is only you and the consumer. It is the power of your product and your brand and your value proposition,” D’Souza said in an earnings call.
E-commerce’s revenue contribution at the time of merger was 2.5%. By late 2021, it was 7%, a growth of 130% in a single year. By 2024–25, it reached 14%, overtaking modern trade for the first time. By the third quarter of 2025–26, e-commerce and quick commerce together stood at 18.5%.
“I don’t think anyone else is in this ballpark,” says D’Souza. He is not wrong. HUL’s equivalent figure runs at 7–8%, Nestlé India’s at 8.5%. The company that almost missed the decade’s defining channel shift now leads it among its peers.
What makes the number more significant, according to Motilal Oswal, is TCPL’s margins on quick commerce are comparable to traditional channels, unlike most peers, who are seeing margin erosion on the platform.
The Tata group’s acquisition of BigBasket in May 2021 gave TCPL a window into how millions of Indians shop for groceries.
In an earlier earnings call D’Souza pointed out that BigBasket is a group company, not a TCPL asset. But within the group, he said, they were working closely to find synergies.
The channel shift also fits the company’s portfolio. Quick commerce skews toward the premium buyer: the person reaching for Himalayan rock salt at ₹100 rather than iodised salt at ₹30, Organic India’s tulsi tea rather than a commodity tea bag.
The premium end of TCPL’s portfolio, built over five years, is precisely what the fastest-growing channel wants. The mass business still dominates revenue.
Half-way Mark
In January 2021, D’Souza said, “If we get it right, the rewards would be endless. If we didn’t, we’d have to live with it for a long time.” Five years later, he rates himself “five out of 10”. Ask him what TCPL has that HUL and Nestlé don’t, and the answer is the four letters T-A-T-A.
Here is what five out of 10 looks like. TCPL’s revenue has grown over 80% between 2019–20 and 2024–25. In annual terms, that is a compound rate of roughly 13%, faster than HUL’s 9.8%, Nestlé India’s 10.5% and ITC’s 9.7% over the same period, albeit off a smaller base.
TCPL reported a consolidated annual turnover of ₹17,618cr in 2024–25. Its operating margin, what survives from every rupee of revenue after paying for everything, runs at 14–15%. HUL’s is 23–24%.
Closing this gap requires high-margin businesses like Ching’s, Organic India, Soulfull, cold-pressed oil to grow fast enough to become roughly a third of total revenue. Right now, they are 8–9%.
Tea costs, which TCPL cannot control, need to normalise. Integration costs from the 2024 acquisitions need to wind down.
Motilal Oswal projects margins reaching 17% in three years. The path to 20%-plus, where HUL and Nestlé operate, is considerably longer than that.
Return on capital, how much profit a company earns on every rupee invested, tells the same story from a different angle. TCPL’s sits at roughly 10%. HUL’s is 27%. D’Souza points out that the core business, stripped of the 2024 acquisition capital, delivers 30%-plus.
The acquisitions are dragging the consolidated number while they are still being absorbed. Most analysts expect the trajectory to improve. The question is whether it does so within the timeline management has guided.
D’Souza describes the portfolio in three segments: the international business: Tetley, steady and cash-generative. The India staples: tea and salt, large but low-margin, subject to commodity costs he cannot control. And the growth businesses: Ching’s, Organic India, Soulfull and cold-pressed oil, which are small today but carry the highest margins and expectations.
“All three pieces need to come together,” says D’Souza.
“Each piece in the portfolio has a very specific purpose,” explains Krishnakumar. International for steady margins. Sampann for growth. Capital Foods and Organic India for both. “The headline target ties it together: a double-digit-plus topline and a bottom line growing higher than that,” he adds.
Today, the portfolio spans tea, coffee, water, ready-to-drink beverages, salt, pulses, spices, ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat offerings, breakfast cereals, snacks and mini meals.
However, the product range is in the food and beverages (F&B) universe. The company does not yet cover much else. “Without personal care or home care, TCPL is not yet a comprehensive FMCG powerhouse,” says Devangshu Dutta, founder of Third Eyesight, a boutique management-consulting firm.
Krishnakumar’s response is: “On a revenue basis, F&B accounts for nearly 80% of the FMCG universe. Outside of F&B, it requires a very different set of skills, a very different DNA.”
TCPL is not making bets in personal-care or home-care segments in the near future.
The Long Game
“There’s no magic breakout moment,” says Krishnakumar. What he points to instead are accumulations: salt crossing million packets a day, the stock market re-rating and the innovation pipeline turning out a new product every week.
The competition, however, is not waiting. HUL’s quick commerce is logging 3% of revenue, growing at over 100%. ITC plans to spend ₹20,000cr over five years with the bulk for foods. Nestlé is deepening its product pipeline.
These rival FMCG companies are now moving faster than they have in years. For TCPL, the race has gotten harder.
At the same time, these giant competitiors have their own challenges. HUL draws only 25% of its revenue from foods. Nestlé is concentrated in dairy and confectionery.
ITC, which is still moving away from tobacco, draws 40% of its revenue from packaged foods and personal care combined.
While these Goliaths have their attention split, TCPL’s focused approach is perhaps the one thing they cannot replicate. “In any category that we have a stake in, we would be among the top three brands,” says a confident D’Souza.
Six years in, the pieces are in place. “Our strategic road map and the strong foundation we have laid for the business have yielded good results…Our overarching ambition is to evolve into a full-fledged FMCG company,” Chandrasekaran said in TCPL annual report 2024–25.
Whether TCPL becomes big and matches his vision is a question the next six years will answer.
Within the Tata group, TCPL’s revenue ranking may not have moved much: eighth in 2019–20, seventh today. Both profits and market capitalisation have grown more than three times. It’s now worth over ₹1 lakh crore, nearly seven times Tata Chemicals, and more than double that of Tata Communications.
The market is not pricing what TCPL is. It is pricing what it might become. “Because if you’re not in the top three, there is no point,” says D’Souza. The man who chose to walk into the “sleepy company” is not done yet.
(Published in Outlook Business)
admin
February 6, 2026
Anees Hussain and Kartikay Kashyap, Financial Express / Brand Wagon
6 February 2026
Swiggy Instamart’s Noice has consciously rejected every aesthetic that defines platform house brands. Its visual identity doesn’t sport minimalist colours or whites, no clean sans-serif, no ‘discount alternative’ signalling. Instead it uses Indian truck art inspired design with neon colours and bold text. That design architecture also personifies Swiggy’s big gamble.
Noice isn’t just a private label chasing margin expansion. It’s a differentiation play by a company that’s losing ground in a war in which being faster and cheaper is no longer enough. Early data suggests that Noice is finding traction. In namkeens, sweets, and western snacks, Noice holds a 4.4% market share on Instamart as of December 2025, competing against category leaders like Haldiram’s (16.7%) and Lay’s (9%), according to 1digitalstack.ai. This segment generated between ₹41-60 crore per month in the September-December period, with Noice’s share translating to roughly ₹1.8-2.6 crore a month. In beverages (fruit juice, mocktails, energy drinks, tea, coffee and soda), Noice more than doubled its platform sales share -from 2.6% in July to 5.8% by December. The brand now ranks 12th overall, ahead of Coolberg and gaining on established players. Category leader Real’s share fell from 12.3% to 9.5% over the same period. The beverage category generated ₹13,920.3 crore per month during July-December, with Noice’s December share of 5.8% representing about ₹88 lakh in monthly sales. Modest but shows velocity.
Bhushan Kadam, senior vice president, White Rivers Media, says the platform enjoys certain struc-tural advantages: “Swiggy has a credible shot at building Noice into a meaningful private label play because quick commerce (q-commerce) in India is still in a high-growth phase and Swiggy already has the scale, infrastructure, and customer base to drive repeat consumption.”
Swiggy’s own performance with private labels on q-commerce has been positive. Its Supreme Harvest brand, spanning pulses, oils, spices, and dry fruits has achieved just over 20% platform penetration, accord-ing to 1digitalstack.ai. The broader private label landscape offers both encouragement and caution. Tata Digital-owned BigBasket (BB) remains the clear winner, with private labels accounting for nearly 33% of its total revenue. But BB has a crucial advantage: Sourcing infrastructure inherited from Tata’s retail operations that provides scale – and supply chain depth that pure-play q-commerce platforms are still only building.
Noice isn’t Swiggy’s first experiment with owned brands. In May 2025, the company sold its cloud kitchen brands – The Bowl Company, Homely, Soul Rasa, Istah – to Kouzina Food Tech after years of trying to operate its own restaurants. Those brands required Swiggy to manage kitchens, hire chefs, and compete with thousands of independent restaurants. Unit economics never worked out.
Noice represents a fundamentally different model. Instead of large manufacturers optimised for extended shelf lives, Noice works with regional food makers producing in small batches. Launched mid last year with 200 SKUs across 40 manufacturers, it has expanded to over 350 products from 60 makers across 20-plus categories. Packaged versions of items like paneer and rasgullas from the mithai shop fail to resonate with consumers because they might use preservatives and taste artificial. Other offerings include biscuits made with butter instead of margarine, Punjabi lassi with seven-day shelf life delivered everyday like milk.
“Noice seems to be purpose-built for q-commerce: Impulse driven categories, low switching costs and algorithmic discovery. That alone fixes the biggest flaw of Swiggy’s past private label experiment,” says Ankur Sharma, cofounder, Brandshark. It is trying to do things for which customers come back to the platform – “products that are not there on any other platform”, adds Satish Meena, advisor, Datum Intelligence.
Uphill climb
Unlike other private label brands owned by Blinkit and Zepto who largely deal in non-perishable products, Swiggy-owned-Noice currently has a 50-50 split between perishable and non-perishable categories. Perishable products fetch 25-45% margins compared to 15-25% on non-perishable private labels and just 10-15% on third-party FMCG brands. Short shelf lives that enable freshness also mean higher wastage risk if demand forecasting fails. The solution Swiggy is testing hinges on shifting the capex risk entirely to small manufacturers while using its distribution scale as a leverage.
That apart, competition in q-commerce has intensified sharply over the past year. Reliance Retail’s JioMart, Flipkart Minutes, and Amazon Now have entered meaningfully with aggressive pricing. Zepto slashed minimum order values and waived customer fees at ₹149. Swiggy waived platform fees – but only on higher-value baskets at ₹299, essentially ceding low-AOV (average order value) products that drive frequency. In the meantime, market leader Blinkit’s gross order value reached nearly twice that of Instamart’s.
In q-commerce’s brutal pricing war, it is execution that will determine if Noice becomes a genuine differentiator or just another private label. “Proving Noice is not ‘just another’ private label would be the biggest challenge for the company,” says Devangshu Dutta,, founder and CEO, Third Eyesight.
(Published in Financial Express/Brand Wagon)
admin
December 3, 2025
Pooja Yadav, Exchange4Media
3 December 2025
Over the last few months, India’s e‑commerce and quick‑commerce ecosystem has undergone a wave of structural regulatory and tax reforms. Be it the Goods and Services Tax Council (GST Council) formally bringing “local delivery services” under the tax net with an 18% levy, or the newly implemented labour and social-security reforms expanding obligations for gig workers on aggregator platforms like Swiggy and Zomato, the cost and compliance landscape for delivery and fulfilment is shifting significantly.
The latest GST clarification, delivery fees, packaging charges, and logistics surcharges are now creating a ripple effect across pricing, platform margins, and seller compliance requirements.
The past few months have already shown concrete signals that platforms are revising their incentives, delivery promises, and fee structures. Following the GST clarification, major food‑delivery players have raised their platform fees, for instance, Zomato reportedly increased its per‑order fee from ₹10 to ₹12 (pre‑GST), while Swiggy also raised fees in select markets. Some quick‑commerce arms are also reworking free‑delivery thresholds or fee waiver conditions. Swiggy Instamart also recently updated its free‑delivery threshold to orders above ₹299, with handling and surge fees applying below that level, per reports.
Meanwhile, some platforms seem to be signalling a de‑emphasis on “ultra‑fast for every order” as universally viable; free or fast delivery now appears increasingly tied to higher order values or subscription/membership perks.
It looks like these pressures are forcing platforms to reconsider long-standing quick-commerce levers such as ultra-fast delivery, first-order free offers, zero delivery fees, and flash discounts — which have historically driven customer acquisition and retention.
While Zomato did not comment directly, it referred to the Code on Social Security, 2020 (CoSS), noting that the platform is prepared for gig-worker obligations and does not expect the rules to negatively impact long-term business sustainability.
According to Kapil Sharma of Amazon Ads, “The e‑commerce landscape will continue to evolve, but some fundamentals remain constant such as delivering value to consumers and providing advertisers with meaningful ways to engage. Our full-funnel ad solutions allow brands to focus on objectives such as new product launches, brand building, or promoting larger pack sizes, ensuring campaigns remain relevant and effective even as the ecosystem adapts to changing costs and regulations.”
e4m reached out to Swiggy, Meesho, Zepto and BigBasket for comments, but did not receive responses until the time of publishing.
Several experts told e4m that the economic model of quick commerce, built on heavily subsidised delivery and small-ticket frequent orders, is under pressure. Platforms will need to find sustainable levers to retain customers without eroding margins. The industry has started to see a strategic recalibration where speed is increasingly becoming a hygiene factor rather than a differentiator, free delivery is becoming conditional, and platforms are nudging consumers toward larger baskets, subscription models, curated bundles, and scheduled deliveries. Brands, in turn, are also shifting focus from mass discounting to premiumisation, value-led messaging, and precise cohort-based targeting.
Will Free Delivery Become Rare?
With the new social‑security obligations for gig workers under India’s labour reforms, and the added cost burden of delivery services now subject to GST, the economic logic underlying “free delivery” as a marketing lever is coming under stress. Chetan Asher, Founder and CEO of Tonic Worldwide, echoes this view, noting that quick-commerce platforms previously operated on thin contribution margins and heavily subsidised small-ticket, frequent orders. With rising delivery costs and mandatory social-security contributions, universal free delivery is becoming increasingly unsustainable.
Industry analysts point out that the new social-security mandates and GST on delivery fees have lifted per-order costs noticeably. Most quick-commerce platforms already operate at low single-digit contribution levels, making blanket “free delivery” hard to justify. It may continue, but only as a conditional incentive tied to higher basket values, subscription memberships, or flexible delivery slots, rather than as a universal subsidy.
Shradha Agarwal, Co- Founder & Global CEO, Grapes Worldwide, added from an advertising standpoint, “It’s already happened, brands like Zomato, Swiggy, Amazon and Flipkart, who know we are going to buy from them, have shifted from ‘buy now’ tactics to ‘stay with me’ strategies. Those days are gone when platforms were giving blanket discounts, now brands are the ones tightening their offers.” Citing an example she mentioned how offline pricing is ₹235, but online it is sold at ₹185, with online adding to top-line rather than bottom-line.
On promo hooks like ‘₹0 delivery’, ‘first-order free’ or ’10-minute delivery’, Agarwal said, “As labour codes, compliance costs, and social-security contributions kick in, platforms will have less room to burn cash on promos that don’t create sustainable value. Consumers care more about convenience than freebies.”
On ad spend shifts, she noted, “Offer-driven campaigns will weaken, while value-driven storytelling will rise. ATL and influencer campaigns will strengthen, and performance marketing will become more strategic. Retail media will become non-negotiable.”
From a brand perspective, Asher pointed out that quick-commerce spends are increasingly evaluated against contribution margin rather than sheer GMV growth. Discounts and zero-fee offers are losing bite as customer acquisition costs rise. First-party data, replenishment journeys, and sharper cohort-based offers are gaining importance, ensuring that incentives remain ROI-focussed rather than mass-oriented. Similarly, speed claims such as “0 delivery” or “10-minute delivery” are becoming less differentiating in top cities, where most players already deliver within 15–20 minutes. Consumers now respond better to reliable ETAs, fair fee structures, and transparent pricing than aggressive speed promises.
Adding her viewpoint, Pooja Dhamdhere, Commerce Lead at Starcom India, said, “Incentives like free delivery or first-order offers are likely to evolve rather than disappear, and platforms will explore strategies such as tiered benefits, curated bundles, or differentiated pricing for specific cohorts.”
According to serial entrepreneur Alok Chawla and Founder at Kiko Live, added that while platforms may continue absorbing delivery costs in the short term, the long-term economics will require charging for ultra-fast or low-value orders. “Once platforms pass the actual delivery costs to consumers, we expect order frequency and small-cart behaviour to change, with many users shifting to larger baskets or neighbourhood retailers offering free delivery,” he noted.
Alternative Consumer-Incentive Models
Devangshu Dutta, founder and chief executive of Third Eyesight, who is an expert in the consumer and modern retail sector, stated, “I think platforms will pass a significant portion of the new 18% GST burden on delivery to end-consumers, either through higher delivery charges or repackaged platform fees. Some of this cost may also be clawed back from restaurant partners and quick-commerce brands via revised commissions, slotting fees or mandatory participation in marketing programmes, especially in categories where the platform has stronger bargaining power. Overall, I expect higher minimum-order thresholds and a tighter margin environment for restaurants and small D2C brands that rely heavily on third-party platforms.”
Analysts highlight strategies such as minimum-order thresholds, where free or lower-fee delivery applies only above a certain cart value, nudging consumers to order larger baskets rather than frequent small-ticket items. Subscription and membership-based models are also gaining prominence, offering benefits like waived or discounted delivery, priority fulfilment, and access to exclusive promotions in exchange for a fixed fee.
Scheduled or batch delivery windows are being used to optimise logistics, reduce cost pressure on ultra-fast last-mile fulfilment, and improve operational efficiency. Meanwhile, curated bundles and value packs, including weekly or monthly combos, allow consumers to plan purchases while enhancing per-unit economics for platforms. These levers also enable brands to maintain margin integrity without over-reliance on short-term discounting.
From a marketing perspective, this shift is prompting agencies and creative-first firms to move toward value-led messaging, premiumisation, and cohort-based targeting. Dhamdhere explained, “Platforms are optimising assortments by surfacing premium SKUs, nudging higher average order values, and using search optimisation to strengthen profitability. Brands are now focusing on aspirational consumers with curated bundles, subscriptions, and value-led propositions, rather than mass discounting. Performance campaigns will continue, but clarity of value and sustainable margin-led offers are becoming key for acquisition and retention.”
2026: Will regulatory pressure force a recalibration?
As 2026 approaches, the combined impact of GST on delivery services and mandatory social-security contributions for gig workers is forcing a fundamental rethink of quick-commerce economics. With blanket discounts, zero delivery fees and ultra-fast delivery no longer viable as mass levers, platforms are shifting toward basket-building, subscriptions, curated bundles and conditional incentives. The growth thesis is evolving from “habit formation at any cost” to protecting contribution margins through reliable ETAs, transparent pricing and premium assortments rather than aggressive subsidies.
Brands are recalibrating alongside this shift. Premiumisation, value-led propositions and sharper cohort-based targeting are taking precedence over broad discounting, and campaigns are increasingly evaluated on ROI, repeat behaviour and lifetime value rather than raw GMV. Tiered memberships, scheduled deliveries and subscription-led conveniences are emerging as key retention tools, while short-form video, influencer ecosystems and retail media help articulate value in a tighter cost environment.
Chawla said platforms will have to move beyond “₹0 delivery”, “first order free” and “10-minute delivery” as core propositions because the delivery cost burn far exceeds margins on small-ticket orders. Many consumers currently place multiple micro-orders a day simply because delivery is free, but once fees come into play, behaviour will likely shift toward clubbing orders or reverting to neighbourhood retailers, who themselves are rapidly digitising through partners like Kiko Live.
In the next phase, he adds, free instant delivery will only be sustainable for larger baskets, whereas scheduled delivery may become the default for free delivery, with paid instant delivery as an optional upgrade. Subscriptions may drive loyalty, but only up to a point, since the heaviest users would consume more deliveries than the subscription fee can realistically subsidise, making it difficult for platforms to make the model profitable.
This points to a clear playbook for 2026. “Free delivery” and mass discounting are expected to fade, giving way to conditional, tier-based formats that reward higher basket values, subscriptions or specific cohorts. Brand platform partnerships will also move toward profitability rather than promotional burn, with campaigns designed to protect margins instead of fuelling discount-led spikes.
Taken together, the signs suggest that 2026 will not mark the end of convenience, but the end of convenience that is subsidised blindly. The real test now is who absorbs this new cost of convenience, platforms, brands, or consumers. And as that battle plays out, another tension is already emerging: whether small and regional advertisers can survive the rising cost of visibility in India’s digital economy.
(published in Exchange4Media)
admin
November 4, 2025
Yash Bhatia, IMPACT
4 November 2025
It started with groceries. Quick commerce started delivering milk, bread, and eggs in 10–15 minutes, which seemed revolutionary enough in 2022. Then came the iPhone 14 launch, and suddenly, quick commerce wasn’t just about convenience; it was about spectacle. Overnight, India’s app-based delivery ecosystem became the stage for a new ritual: flagship products arriving at your doorstep faster than you can say ‘checkout.’
And now? Phones aren’t the limit. You can even order motorcycles online. Yes, motorcycles. Royal Enfield has partnered with Flipkart to list its entire 350cc portfolio, which will be delivered to five cities: Bengaluru, Gurugram, Kolkata, Lucknow, and Mumbai.
The lines between e-commerce and quick commerce are becoming increasingly blurred. Flipkart’s Flipkart Minutes and Amazon’s instant delivery options are proof that speed is no longer a differentiator; it’s table stakes. And as platforms race to expand, high-ticket items are joining the frenzy, from electronics and furniture to watches, fitness equipment, and premium kitchen appliances. For platforms, these products are goldmines of margin; the challenge lies in logistics and consumer trust.
According to a report by CareEdge Advisory, India had over 270 million online shoppers in 2024, making it the second-largest e-retail user base globally, while the e-commerce market grew 23.8% in 2024 over the year-ago period, it said. The report also added that Indians ordered Rs 64,000 crore of goods from quick-commerce platforms.
From the consumer standpoint, one of the challenges for consumers to buy high-ticket items from the quick commerce platforms is to get consumer trust, which used to be the case when e-commerce started its operations. Can quick commerce move to high-ticket items? Is quick commerce looking at these items as a branding exercise, or are they looking at them as a serious revenue stream channel?
Chirag Taneja, Founder & CEO, GoKwik – an e-commerce enablement platform, says what began as a branding exercise for D2C brands has now evolved into a credible revenue stream. “In the early days, high-ticket categories on D2C platforms saw limited traction,” he explains. “Trust was still being built, customers were unsure if their orders would even reach them. There were many friction points.”
But that’s no longer the case. According to GoKwik’s network data, high-ticket purchases (above ₹2,500) are no longer outliers, they’re becoming a consistent driver of topline revenue.
Interestingly, most of these premium purchases are powered by credit instruments from no-cost EMIs to instant credit options at checkout. “This reflects a clear shift in mindset,” says Taneja. “Consumers no longer view high-value spending as a financial strain. They see it as a set of manageable, bite-sized payments that help them aspire higher, quicker. It’s not just a financial enabler, it’s a psychological unlock that makes premium consumption feel accessible and routine,” he adds.
“With strong trust in delivery reliability, smooth returns, and credible brand backing, the ecosystem has bridged the gap that once kept premium shopping offline,” says Taneja.
Devangshu Dutta, Founder of a specialist consulting firm, Third Eyesight, thinks differently and points out that high-value items still make up a small slice of quick commerce sales. “The model thrives on simplicity, a limited product range on the platform’s end, and quick, low-friction decision-making on the consumer’s,” he explains.
That said, Dutta believes quick commerce can still play a strategic role for premium brands. “For high-value products, q-comm can be an excellent lever for driving velocity, testing market response, or amplifying brand visibility. But it should be viewed as one piece of the channel mix, not the primary sales driver.”
From the platform’s perspective, however, listing high-ticket products brings its own upside. “They create excitement, boost average transaction values, and improve realised margins,” Dutta notes. “Consumers are often drawn in by novelty, exclusivity, or status appeal, especially during big launches or limited-time promotions.”
Still, he adds a note of realism: “Premium and high-ticket purchases largely remain planned decisions. Most consumers continue to prefer established offline and e-commerce channels for such buys where trust in authenticity, return policies, and after-sales services still carry greater weight than instant gratification.”
Seshu Kumar Tirumala, Chief Buying and Merchandising Officer, BigBasket, says the company doesn’t look at electronics as a high-ticket item category but rather focuses on building a complete category experience for customers. “For example, if we list an Enfield bike, we’d also want to offer spare parts, servicing options, and extended warranties, because that’s how the category functions,” he explains.
Tirumala adds that BigBasket adopted the same approach when it ventured into mobiles and mobile accessories. “When we launched this category last year, it was a trial. Today, it’s a sizable part of our business,” he says. Currently, electronics and mobile accessories contribute 5–10% of BigBasket’s monthly sales, having grown 250–300% year-on-year since the first iPhone launch on the platform.
While the launch day drives the highest demand for flagship devices like the iPhone, Tirumala notes that the following one to two months see strong accessory sales, from AirPods and headphones to chargers and power banks. “On average, mobiles and accessories account for 7–8% of our total sales, peaking at 10% during the festive season. Overall, this category has grown from zero to 7–8% of our total business in just a year, and we expect it to reach around 25% next year,” he adds.
Currently, the platform offers select models from smartphone brands, including OnePlus, Realme, Redmi, Vivo, and Oppo.
The Bengaluru-based platform is now piloting the delivery of large home appliances across across select city areas in partnership with Croma. If successful, BigBasket plans to expand this model to other cities, further broadening its quick commerce offering beyond everyday essentials.
Taneja points out that the traditional e-commerce model, once driven by discounts and affordability, is now evolving toward experience and access. Over the next few years, two major shifts will shape this transformation: credit-first commerce, where EMIs become the default mode for premium purchases, and aspirational commerce, where consumers view e-commerce as the easiest path to lifestyle upgrades. Consequently, platforms will need to reposition themselves from being “where you save more” to “where you unlock more”, prioritising personalisation, trust, and a seamless shopping experience.
As quick commerce matures, it is no longer just about instant gratification; it’s becoming a bridge between aspiration and accessibility.
Platforms are proving that speed, trust, and seamless experience can coexist with high-value purchases.
(Published in IMPACT)
