BENGALURU: While competitors fight for every neighbourhood in the metros, Flipkart Minutes is making a contrarian bet that the future of quick commerce will be built in Bharat.
Within two years of launch, the Walmart-owned company’s quick commerce arm now operates 1,000 dark stores across more than 130 cities. Further, 90 of the 130 cities are tier II and tier III markets. The company is prioritising smaller cities while rivals deepen their presence in the largest urban centres.
“We just started tier II and tier III expansion earlier this year, and 50% of our new stores are coming in metros and tier I and 50% are in tier II and tier III,” Hemant Badri, senior vice president and head, supply chain, AI transformation, new business, customer experience and re-commerce, Flipkart Group, said in an interview with Mint. He added that some tier III locations are scaling up even faster than expected.
The strategy stands out in a market that remains heavily concentrated in a handful of large cities.
By leveraging its massive existing e-commerce logistics network, Flipkart plans to avoid exorbitant real estate costs and fierce competition in major metros. Instead, the company is tailoring its instant-delivery service to smaller-town consumer habits, where larger family sizes drive higher average order values and more weekly bulk shopping, rather than impulse-driven, smaller, more frequent transactions.
Even Blinkit, the country’s largest quick-commerce player, has acknowledged that the sector remains concentrated in the top 15-20 cities and a relatively narrow set of categories. In its Q4 FY26 shareholder letter, parent Eternal said its top eight cities are approaching coverage maturity, while cities beyond the top eight have average serviceable pin-code coverage of less than 30%.
However, the company also said early experience in these markets has been encouraging, with store ramp-ups faster and profitability comparable to that in mature markets due to lower real estate and operating costs.
Building a Bharat playbook
That view is also finding support on the Street. A July 2025 report by Emkay Global said non-metros have become economically viable for quick commerce due to lower rents and labour costs, allowing stores to break even at lower order volumes than in tier I markets.
The debate, however, is far from settled. Bernstein argued in November that while quick commerce would continue to flourish in metros, modern trade and traditional retail would remain dominant in the next 400 cities.
This uncertainty has created an opportunity for Flipkart Minutes to build an early lead in smaller cities before rivals fully shift their attention away from the metros.
According to market research firm Datum Intelligence, Blinkit leads India’s quick commerce market with a 47% share, followed by Zepto at 24% and Swiggy Instamart at 22%, while other players, including BigBasket and Flipkart Minutes, account for the remaining 6%.
Flipkart Minutes believes the economics of smaller cities differ materially from those of metros.
Customers in tier II and tier III markets tend to place larger, value-driven orders and are more inclined towards weekly stock-up missions than multiple daily purchases. The company has built an ‘Extra Saver’ proposition around larger baskets, while staples such as atta, pulses and edible oil account for a larger share of demand because of bigger family sizes, Badri said.
Across cities, the average order value of fruits and vegetables increased by 30%, repeat purchases are up, and demand is spreading well beyond grocery into electronics, beauty, wellness, and lifestyle. Order volumes have grown 5X since last year, he added.
Leveraging infrastructure for instant delivery
The company says its expansion has been particularly encouraging in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and the Northeast, citing towns such as Arrah, Bihar Sharif, and Muzaffarpur, as well as Asansol, Durgapur, and Siliguri in the east, and Hubballi and Belagavi in Karnataka.
“The next phase of growth will definitely come from tier II-plus cities, which already contribute 60-65% of online consumption,” said Sandeep Abhange, analyst at LKP Securities.
Flipkart’s strategy could shield it from the price wars in metro markets, allowing it to focus on value-led sales in other regions. However, Abhange argued that metro markets will remain crucial to overall growth in quick commerce in the long term.
Analysts believe that the opportunity is largely untapped. “These markets are definitely going to be the next big opportunity because dark-store density is rising in metros, while operating costs for dark stores are much lower in tier III-plus cities,” said LKP Securities’ Abhange.
For context, Amazon India—Flipkart’s most formidable rival in e-commerce—said in April that it is working on expanding its micro-fulfilment centre network to 1,000 across 100 cities soon.