By Shan Li | Photography by Shubhadeep Mukherjee for WSJ

BENGALURU, India -- Neha Sharma, an accountant, was on a work call when she realized she was out of diapers for her 2-year-old daughter. While on her call, she quickly ordered a pack from one of the lightning-fast delivery services that has cropped up in India.

Minutes later, thanks to a carefully choreographed stocking and delivery process on the back end, the diapers were at her doorstep, to the New Delhi mom's relief.

"It's so convenient," said Sharma, 34, who hops between a bunch of quick-delivery apps and orders at least once a day. "I don't have to leave the house to buy diapers, groceries, anything she needs."

India has become ground zero for superfast deliveries -- often in under 10 minutes -- of everything from eggs to electronics, fueling a boom that has attracted billions of dollars from global companies and deep-pocketed investors.

Called quick-commerce, the sector is expanding rapidly as Amazon.com and Flipkart, a Walmart-backed e-commerce firm, compete with Indian startups. In India, the quick-commerce market is forecast to reach $50 billion by 2030, up from $8 billion last year, according to a report from Deloitte and Google. That would make it about 20% of the country's total e-commerce market, compared with about 8% today.

The model is now spreading beyond India. Amazon this month announced the expansion of 30-minutes-or-less delivery to dozens of U.S. cities after pilot projects in Seattle and Philadelphia. The service costs $3.99 an order for Prime customers and $13.99 for others.

In India, the deliveries are free for non-Prime members who spend more than 149 rupees, or about $1.50. On Indian quick-commerce apps, which largely don't require subscriptions, orders above $2 are generally free.

The backbone of the system is a dense network of tiny warehouses -- known in the industry as "dark stores" and by Amazon as micro-fulfillment centers -- scattered throughout a city, with delivery radiuses averaging about 1 to 2 miles.

"The magic is not very complex," said Abhinav Singh, Amazon's vice president of operations for regions including Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. "It's made easy by technology."

Orders pop up simultaneously on hand-held devices carried by warehouse pickers and delivery drivers. Pickers pluck items from shelves in a prescribed sequence while drivers double-check bagged orders before speeding off on scooters.

Spurred by concerns over road safety, the Indian government this year asked quick-commerce firms to drop their 10-minute delivery guarantees. Several companies have said drivers aren't penalized for delivery times exceeding 10 minutes. Singh said Amazon's drivers aren't shown the arrival time that the customer sees.

Some industry experts say India has many of the ingredients needed to make lightning-fast delivery viable: dense cities, a large labor pool and a vast customer base accustomed to buying daily essentials from neighborhood shops. The first Indian quick-commerce apps launched during the Covid-19 pandemic, piggybacking off a rewiring of urban shopping habits.

Amazon's quick-delivery business, which it first rolled out in the southern tech hub of Bengaluru, is built on its existing logistics network, Singh said. But the speed demanded by the service also required building new systems from scratch.

"It's a highly complex execution to make sure that things are running to the bar you would like them to," he said.

The challenges include selecting the right locations for the petite warehouses, often run by third-party logistics partners. These facilities range from 3,000 to 10,000 square feet -- tiny compared with a traditional 400,000-square-foot fulfillment center. A city like New Delhi may require up to 200 warehouses for a company to sustain rapid deliveries.

Each micro-fulfillment center, restocked several times a day, carries a slightly different assortment of products tailored to neighborhood demand. Fast-selling items like bread and onions are placed near the front and less commonly ordered goods like novels and memory cards are in the back.

During one warehouse visit, a picker fulfilled an order of banana chips and chocolate in about 90 seconds, guided by a hand-held device directing her to each shelf.

Shraddha Surya, a 28-year-old product developer, said she has been a devoted customer of quick-commerce apps like Blinkit and Zepto for three years. She orders groceries, sanitary napkins and cosmetics like mascara, saving herself a weekly grocery-store run.

"It's so much easier than going offline shopping," she said. "It saves you energy, time -- especially when it's hot or it rains."

About 6,000 dark stores operate across India, with the country's eight biggest cities accounting for 70% of warehouses for the top five players, according to research firm Bernstein. Homegrown startups account for most of that footprint, with Blinkit leading with over 2,200 warehouses.

Some of the startups are now turning their know-how to other kinds of immediate needs. Blinkit now offers the option to order an ambulance in some locations -- seeking to fill a vacuum in a country where people can't count on public ambulances to arrive in time.

But quick-commerce firms are burning through cash chasing market share. Major investors like SoftBank, Temasek and Lightspeed Venture Partners have poured money into Indian startups including Swiggy, which runs Instamart; Eternal, the parent company of Blinkit; and Zepto.

Amazon announced last month that it plans to expand quick delivery into 100 cities across India and open more than 1,000 mini-warehouses, shaking up the market in India after rapid expansion by local startups.

"From the perspective of the economics of it, it's a hard one to get right," Singh said.

The software behind the service helps Amazon map efficient delivery routes using real-time traffic data and stock warehouses with products tailored to local shopping habits. Amazon's existing supply-chain infrastructure could also give it an edge as it expands into smaller cities, Singh said.

Waiting outside an Amazon warehouse in New Delhi, Gaurav, a 23-year-old who goes by one name, said he often delivers to repeat customers, with many trips taking only two or three minutes. After two years working for several quick-commerce firms, he usually doesn't need the app for directions.

"I know every speed breaker, every pothole," he said. "I know which buildings have elevators and which ones require the stairs."

Before becoming a delivery driver, he toiled for nearly two years in factories, working 12-hour shifts while making about $170 a month. Now he works a nine-hour shift for Amazon, making about 50 cents an order, and takes home about $350 a month.

"Compared to other jobs, we get paid decently," Gaurav said. "Here I have way more liberty and freedom."

Charlie Linton, Asia equity portfolio manager at asset-management firm Ninety One, said competition has intensified as Amazon and Walmart-backed Flipkart push deeper into the market, putting downward pressure on prices.

Linton, whose portfolio formerly invested in Eternal and currently invests in Swiggy, said Indian firms have a head start in operating efficiently and defending dominant positions in some cities. Given India's size, he expects the market to consolidate into a handful of regional leaders.

"I would expect there to be a duopoly, or oligopoly," he said. "You will see different competitors depending on which geography you go."

Critics such as Aditya Suresh, head of India equity research for Macquarie Capital, don't see quick-commerce becoming sustainably profitable given the increasing level of competition.

Customers frequently switch between apps chasing discounts because the experience differs little across platforms, he said. Fierce competition squeezes prices while driving up labor and real-estate costs. And unlike Uber or DoorDash, which largely act as middlemen, quick-commerce firms carry the cost of leasing warehouses.

"Food delivery is a platform business," he said. "This is a physical inventory and real-estate business."

Write to Shan Li at shan.li@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 22, 2026 23:00 ET (03:00 GMT)

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