"Dark stores", 10 min delivery in Indian cities, with bumper to bumper traffic, and it takes an hr to drive 5 km in peak traffic. Sounds like a whole lotta BS to me.
Haha, visit Mumbai once
Zepto (YC W21), a grocery delivery app in India, raises $60M
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Re: Zepto (YC W21), a grocery delivery app in India, raises $60M
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
Until such a time a HBS Case Study on Zepto is wrought, here's a bunch of MBA speak which may answer this: 1. There's always room for more companies than one may think. Oft times, the markets are too huge for a single player to dominate. 2. Addressing an adjacent market is a great way to take on the incumbents, who may or may not be able to match your unique innovation. This has the dual advantage of upending existin…
> they've figured out a way to deliver groceries in 10mins (!) with a sustainable business model in the 6 months they've been stealthily operating in Mumbai I dunno man, smells fishy. I never understood how the whole 10mins delivery thing could work economically, much less in a place with low purchasing power like India. Or maybe its just a sign that wealth inequality is rife in Mumbai such that people are willing to…
Their competition is also doing sub 20 minute deliveries!
> Foodtech unicorns Zomato and Swiggy have entered this space with 10 minute delivery in select cities. On August 17, Zomato-backed Grofers announced 10-minute deliveries in 10 Indian cities.
> Hyperlocal delivery startup Dunzo has also launched its under 19-minute delivery in Bengaluru. Swiggy's Instamart continues to create 'dark (online orders only) stores' with partners in areas of operations to execute more control over their grocery inventory, as it begins 15-to-30-minute deliveries on the platform.
The secret seems to be in leveraging "Kirana stores". There's at least 10 stores in 1km radius from where I am. This is usually the case in most residential centres in urban India. The bigger problem isn't delivery and pricing, it is inventory and scale.
What's working in their favour is that most Kirana store owners use a smartphone already and have access to free/cheap internet. This could be leveraged in an Uber-style just-in-time order fulfillment. Another interesting ripple-effect could be that households turn into warehouses / dark store-fronts: Kind of like Airbnb for Grocery (everyone's a grocerer!). There's already a precedent in India of households taking to social-commerce (where goods are sold online on WhatsApp / Instagram / marketplaces like Meesho to their followers or social circle, without any store front).
Re: Zepto (YC W21), a grocery delivery app in India, raises $60M
#13How are they able to raise money with established players already present in the market like Swiggy and several others?
I was quite interested by this article. Raising $60 million so fast for such a margin-brutal high logistics complexity business when the founders are literally straight out of high school is either very promising or very bad.
I.e this is either a massive case of FOMO investing or these founders have articulated a really novel approach that’s going to give them an edge beyond the big raises.
The Airbnb for Kirana stores explanation downthread is maybe compelling. Almost like the 10 minute delivery is a byproduct of their approach rather than an insane logistics system they’ll need to build from scratch.
Re: Zepto (YC W21), a grocery delivery app in India, raises $60M
#14Was thinking of getting into the space, here’s some stuff I analysed:
* urban centres in India have a lot of small shops all over the place, usually on every street. These are usually owner-staffed and need one to two people to work them.
* they have limited warehousing space, but there are a lot of them
* there’s a large population of semi-educated young people for whom delivery jobs are attractive, as a stepping stone (I’ve heard that all American teenagers flip burgers at McD at some point, this job is a bit like that). High turnover, but they all have a bike and a smartphone, all you need to onboard them is a t-shirt.
* most orders can be fulfilled from one of these corner shops a couple of streets away * the economics can work because a lot of the delivery people are paid the same amount as a worker in one of these little shops - but with delivery they can move a lot more GMV.
* if you think it as one staff member from every corner shop getting on a bike to do quick deliveries within a 5 minute radius, it makes more sense.
* All the customers being on the same platform provides access to demand - there supply is already there. They just need a brightly coloured uniform.
Re: Zepto (YC W21), a grocery delivery app in India, raises $60M
#15Re: Zepto (YC W21), a grocery delivery app in India, raises $60M
#16How are they able to raise money with established players already present in the market like Swiggy and several others?
I was quite interested by this article. Raising $60 million so fast for such a margin-brutal high logistics complexity business when the founders are literally straight out of high school is either very promising or very bad. I.e this is either a massive case of FOMO investing or these founders have articulated a really novel approach that’s going to give them an edge beyond the big raises. The Airbnb for Kirana stor…
Nothing attracts investor attention like "19 year old Stanford dropout seeking investor money for an outrageous idea"