Quick commerce apps are adding dark stores to beat competition
India's quick commerce apps are gearing up for this year's festive rush by adding more dark stores—those local mini-warehouses that help speed up deliveries.
Instead of chasing shoppers with discounts, companies like Blinkit, Flipkart Minutes, Amazon Now, and Swiggy Instamart are focusing on getting your orders to you faster and covering more neighborhoods.
Blinkit tops the leaderboard with 1,700 dark stores
Blinkit has opened 150-200 new dark stores since June, now topping 1,700 stores nationwide.
Flipkart Minutes is running over 400 stores with plans to double that after its Big Billion Days sale.
Amazon Now just entered Mumbai and now has 100 dark stores after building a strong base in Bengaluru and Delhi-NCR.
Swiggy Instamart is boosting capacity and hiring more people but hasn't added as many new locations.
Quick commerce set to make $1.6 billion during festive season
With rents rising for prime store spots, competition is heating up among these apps to cover urban areas first.
Even so, quick commerce is set to make about $1.6 billion during this year's festive season—roughly 12% of all online sales.
To handle the surge, companies have grown their temp teams by up to 60% and are packing shelves closer to where you live so your Diwali snacks or last-minute gifts arrive even quicker.
The big shift: less focus on flashy deals, more on making sure your stuff gets delivered fast when it really counts.