The Modern Milk Man Sits in the Dark: Demanding More From On-Demand Delivery

A new kid has emerged on the block to create an ultra-fast standard for on-demand delivery: Quick Commerce.

The carbon footprint of US food waste is bigger than the airline industry’s (source), and more than a third of that food waste is produced in our homes. We are poor inventory managers when we do groceries in bulk: we ambitiously buy ingredients that we don’t cook, fruits start to mold by mid-week, forgotten purchases zombie in the freezer for a yea... See more

Quick Commerce startups are asset heavy and vertically integrated, and this starts with real estate. These companies operate via Dark Stores, also referred to as micro-fulfillment centers, which are small warehouses strategically placed around city centers to service their immediate neighborhoods, often with a 1 mile radius service area

Quick Commerce is the rapidly emerging space in food and convenience item delivery that will deliver essential products at ultra-fast speeds (for the purpose of this article: sub-20 minutes).

Such speed and convenience is difficult to achieve when your business model is at the mercy of third party merchants fulfilling your orders. These companies must therefore be vertically integrated with a high degree of control over their Dark Stores and courier networks.

Kagan Sumer — founder of Gorillas, one of the best known startups in the Quick Commerce space — consistently says, “We have the technology to go to space and we’re still going to the supermarket?” It’s a thought provoking idea, especially when compounded by our poor ability to manage our personal kitchen pantry inventory, which results in 54 billio... See more