Owing to the Covid-19 pandemic’s interruption of the supply chain, quick commerce, a cutting-edge business model where products and services are delivered within 10–30 minutes of ordering, emerged.
Quick commerce, also known as q-commerce, is about ease and quickness. In comparison to conventional e-commerce, it is far faster and more practical.
The phrase describes online stores that ship products in a matter of hours or even minutes, as in the case of some quick platforms.
Although the phrase is occasionally used synonymously with on-demand delivery, the concept of fast commerce is not new. It has long been in the food sector and has recently become popular due to changing customer preferences.
With time, interest grew in a number of quick commerce businesses and platforms, including those that concentrate only on food items using a marketplace model.
Also read, Mohamed Sekkina digs dip into Quick Commerce
These rapid commerce enterprises mainly concentrate on things that could be consumed immediately, that customers frequently need or want to be delivered right away. For example, food.
However, the market has grown and more items besides perishables are now available for purchase. It frequently focuses on the micro, or on smaller amounts of fewer products.
For instance, nonperishable things that people urgently need for a special occasion can be ordered and delivered the same day.
More products than ever are wanted and expected to be delivered to customers’ doorsteps today. There is no longer a 24- to 48-hour delivery wait time. Instead, a few minutes are now anticipated for this.
Why quick commerce?
Speed
Quick commerce businesses are able to deliver goods to customers far faster than a traditional retail location.
This results from the previously described hyper-local micro-fulfillment facilities being dispersed throughout densely populated areas of towns and placed close to those placing orders. Orders can therefore be filled more quickly than they could with conventional in-store fulfillment.
These establishments don’t need to give up valuable square footage to accommodate customers exploring aisles because every inch of their floor plan has been streamlined for productivity. Once orders are prepared, couriers can quickly travel between online stores and clients’ locations.
Product availability
Driven by increases in artificial intelligence and other technology that track demand and alter inventory in real-time, there is a higher likelihood that things will be accessible as well as quick delivery.
Intelligent software may identify trends in demand, and corporations can then ensure that goods are delivered in accordance with such patterns.
Additionally, they use mobile technologies to maintain their army of couriers, who serve as the brand’s image and play a crucial role, educated, skilled-up, and offering an exceptional level of service to clients.
Continuous business
Unlike traditional stores, which have predetermined daily operational hours, these internet stores can be open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
This round-the-clock accessibility fits with the “always-on” lifestyle that has developed as a result of smartphone technology, in which individuals are up at all hours and carry their cellphones with them at all times.
Simplify
With quick commerce, you can continue doing what you’re doing while opening an app and pressing a few buttons, as opposed to stopping what you’re doing, looking around for keys and cards, tying laces, walking a few blocks, then around the store to look for your items, not finding them, so you ask a staff member for help, queuing, paying, bagging items, then walking back home.
The core and highly alluring value proposition that rapid commerce companies provide time-pressed customers is ease.
The era we find ourselves is an era of ease. We hold anticipation of quick customer pleasure because technology has fundamentally changed consumer expectations.
Whether this pleasure comes from asking a query on Google and having the answer appear instantly, or from buying food through an online platform and getting it delivered ten minutes later.
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