Zepto has been one of the most talked about startups in recent days. The 10-minutes delivery has created the necessary buzz for the startup even though Grofers had promised 20-minutes delivery prior to it. 

I love the startup, it is amazing. I am a user of both Zepto and Grofers and can easily claim that Zepto is twice as fast as Grofers, however, Grofers offers a better discount.

The process is simple, they have set up dark stores across the cities they operate in. They pack the items in 60 seconds of order confirmation, remarkable feat none the less. Their delivery partners are assigned a particular area unlike Swiggy and Zomato. 

The business model is straight forward, margin on selling groceries. Later they can expand to house utility, personal care, lifestyle and fashion products.

Isn’t everything too good to be true for Zepto? Yes, the problem with Zepto that I can observe is Zepto has a huge market, frequency of about 10 times a month but a ticket size of only 100-200 rupees while Grofers and Big Basket has frequency of 1-2 times a month with average ticket size of 3-4K rupees. 

I personally will not be comfortable paying delivery charges of 35 rupees for 100-200 rupees product because the relative value is too high. I would prefer going to Kirana store. 

The challenge before Zepto is neither gaining customers nor getting orders, it is to afford free deliveries for order and for that to take place, they need to ensure higher ticket size. 

The space is red hot with Grofers rebranding itself as BlinkIt. I am looking forward to seeing who emerges as the market leader.