Zepto

Bangalore or Bengaluru is one of the few cities in India that is highly tech driven. We have apps for almost anything and everything. From the moment you wake up in the morning, milk, groceries, meat, food, package – we have an app for everything. We have BigBasket, Licious, Swiggy, Swiggy Instamart, Grofers, Dunzo to name a few of the apps. With the pandemic in our lives, everything could be delivered right at our doorstep.

It was no wonder when Zepto was launched in the market I was like , ” Meh, another app!!” (in my daughters lingo!! :))

What is Zepto?

If you are not living in major cities in India – chances are that you would have not heard about “Zepto” It was founded by 19 year old Stanford University dropouts, Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohr in April 2021. They returned to India just before the pandemic and found the process of getting groceries delivered cumbersome during the country’s lockdown from March 2020. They say “Necessity is the mother of invention” and this is what fueled the teenagers ambition to deliver groceries in a shorter time frame. Though initially called as KiranaKart, it was rechristened itself to a new name called “Zepto”.

It is primarily a grocery delivery app which promises to deliver groceries within 10 minutes on an average and is based in Mumbai. You can order a ton of items and they will still be delivered in 10 to 14 minutes flat. Zepto has about 2500 items in its app which includes groceries, meats, snacks, cleaning essentials and more. You can order any of them and they will be delivered within 10 minute time frame.

Zepto advantage:

Now, there are plenty of apps – what is the Zepto advantage? I can clearly say that delivery time of 10 -14 minutes in Bangalore traffic is the clear winner! There are no delivery charges as of today and if items are not available or out of stock – they are immediately reflected in the app

How does Zepto work?

Delivery service is nothing new in India. With labour being cheap, anything and everything can be delivered home long before the advent of apps. But with apps becoming commonplace and the Indian public being more tech driven, new apps forayed into the scene.

I was amazed at the way Zepto worked. The most common problems in grocery delivery service are not being able to keep up the delivery slot timing and unavailability of items which doesn’t get reflected in the app immediately.

Zepto solved these business problems beautifully. How?

They made use of what are known as “dark stores” or “micro warehouses” business model in high demand neighborhoods. “Dark stores” are not open to the common public and they are used only by Zepto. They use technology to map out the fastest routes to the customers destination and keep track of items using AI. “Dark stores” have items arranged in a particular way for easier pickup by delivery agents. By the time a customer checks out his order and done paying for the same, the order is almost done with getting packed! This is what actually blew me away when using the app! This speed is also a huge game changer in a rather slow market.

Each micro warehouse can satisfy 2500 orders a day. Zepto is supposedly adding 100,00 new customers every week and most of them are women!

Zepto has apparently raised about $100 million in series C funding taking its valuation to $570 million as of December 2021.

Future of Zepto:

There are numerous competitors in the instant grocery delivery service market like Swiggy Instamart and Blinkit and many more will attempt to come to this space in the future as well. But Zepto might be remembered for the first one to have carved an original path into this space and they might churn new business strategies in the future as well!

Zepto currently operates in Bangalore, New Delhi, Mumbai, Gurgaon, Hyderabad and Chennai and is looking to expand into other regions in India as well.

The youth of India always opens some new and amazing startup doors! 🙂