Delhi Police have registered a case against Blinkit for allegedly selling knives that violate government specifications, after discovering that criminals had purchased them online.
India's shopping carts on Blinkit turned into quiet storytellers this year.
Eternal-owned quick-commerce firm Blinkit has dropped its '10-minute' delivery claim after intervention by the Labour Ministry amid growing concerns over the welfare and safety of delivery workers.
Eternal, the parent entity of Blinkit and Zomato, on Wednesday said Deepinder Goyal will step down as its Group CEO and Managing Director with Blinkit CEO Albinder Dhindsa set to succeed him as Group CEO from February 1.
Eternal, the parent company of Zomato and Blinkit, on Wednesday reported a 72.8 per cent jump in its net profit for the third quarter of financial year 2026 (Q3FY26), on the back of a robust momentum in its quick commerce business. The firm's net profit rose to Rs 102 crore in Q3FY26 against Rs 59 crore it reported during the same period a year ago.
'As long as apps show impossible delivery times, delivery and packaging workers will be pressured to meet unsafe, unhealthy standards.'
Through its cloud kitchens, ITC is building a portfolio of shorter shelf-life offerings and selling them through quick commerce platforms.
Ecommerce (ecom) and quick commerce (qcom) platforms are expected to lead gig worker hiring in calendar year 2026 (CY26), adding nearly 1 million workers on the back of sustained demand for last-mile deliveries, higher order volumes, and continued expansion of dark stores into non-metropolitan cities, industry experts have said.
Zomato was not just recovering, it was rebuilding and reinventing, showing signs of maturing as a business. Chaos had been turned into momentum. A fascinating excerpt from Megha Vishwanath's book, UNSEEN: The Untold Story of Deepinder Goyal And The Making Of Zomato.
Growth accelerated for Zomato operator Eternal in the second quarter of financial year 2026 (Q2FY26). Zomato's business to commerce (B2C) operations delivered a strong 57 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) rise in net order value (NOV) to Rs 23,164 crore while consolidated revenue soared 183 per cent Y-o-Y (90 per cent Q-o-Q) to Rs 13,590 crore during the period, with like-for-like (LFL) growth of 65 per cent, and acceleration in the quick commerce (QC) segment, which recorded NOV growth of 137 per cent Y-o-Y (27 per cent Q-o-Q).
Competition in the fast-growing quick commerce sector is heating up as Swiggy Instamart faces a tough challenge in narrowing the gap with Blinkit, which currently dominates the market. In the second quarter (Q2) of 2024-25 (FY25), Instamart's gross order value (GOV) rose by 42.1 per cent quarter-on-quarter (Q-o-Q) and 75.5 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y), reaching Rs 3,382 crore.
As many as 26 top e-commerce companies, including Zepto, BigBasket and Zomato, have given an undertaking that their platforms are free from misleading claims and unfair trade practices which constitute 'dark patterns', the government said on Thursday.
Food delivery and quick commerce firm Eternal, which owns the Zomato and Blinkit brands, on Thursday reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 65 crore for the second quarter ended September.
India's gifting market is seeing its biggest festive season yet, with sales through quick commerce platforms like Zepto, Blinkit and Instamart jumping 40%-50% year-on-year.
As the quick commerce (qcom) race hots up, a new model - vertical qcom - is gaining investor attention. Unlike horizontal players such as Blinkit, Zepto, and Swiggy Instamart, which stock everything from groceries to gifts and gadgets, vertical platforms focus on depth over breadth.
'Our goal here is to become a small catalyst in humanity's journey of conscious evolution. To lead us into the Post-Darwin era.'
After a tentative start, quick commerce (q-commerce) is ablaze, with Blinkit and Zepto slugging it out in a market distinct from other competitors. The latest entrant is Flipkart, which is ramping up its infrastructure in around 12 cities where it will launch the service in the next six to eight weeks, taking on existing players such as Blinkit, Zepto, Instamart, and BigBasket, among others. According to data analysed from Sensor Tower by BofA Global Research, the daily active user (DAU) base of Blinkit has grown by 58 per cent between February 2023 and February 2024.
Food delivery and quick commerce firm Eternal, which owns the Zomato and Blinkit brands, on Monday reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 25 crore for the June quarter, as continuing investments in quick commerce and going-out businesses weighed on its bottom line. Titan, Hindustan Unilever, Bharat Electronics, Maruti, ICICI Bank and Mahindra & Mahindra were also among the gainers. However, Tata Motors, Adani Ports, State Bank of India and Reliance Industries were among the laggards.
GST Reform 2.0, which trims tax slabs from four to two, signals a push for demand-led growth, and together with recent income tax cuts, sets the stage for sustained economic growth, experts said. The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council on September 3 approved an overhaul of the indirect tax regime by taxing essentials at 5 per cent and other goods at 18 per cent. A new 40 per cent tax will be applicable on luxury and sin items.
Zomato-owned quick commerce firm Blinkit has permanently shut down some of its dark stores in Gurugram amid ongoing strikes by many of its delivery workers in the region. Blinkit informed its workers of the development through a notification - seen by Business Standard - on their delivery partner app which said that the stores are being closed because the partners have not been working at them for the past 3-4 days.
The shareholders of Zomato have approved a special resolution to rename the firm 'Eternal', the company informed in a stock exchange filing. The brand name of the company's food delivery business Zomato will remain the same, along with the app. Eternal will comprise four major businesses (as of now) -- Zomato, Blinkit, District, and Hyperpure.
Eternal (formerly known as Zomato) reported a net profit of Rs 39 crore for the fourth quarter of FY25, down 77.7 per cent year-on-year from Rs 175 crore in the same period a year ago. On a sequential basis, profit was also down 33.8 per cent from Rs 59 crore in the preceding quarter (Q3FY25).
Food delivery firm Zomato Ltd said on Wednesday most stores of its grocery unit Blinkit had resumed operations after being shut following protests by delivery partners. "Over the last few days we have made changes in the delivery partner payout structure with respect to the Blinkit business to address the needs of delivery partners, improve customer experience and reduce cancellation/ order rejection frauds by few delivery partners in the system. "Such changes are done from time to time, as needed," said the company in a letter to the BSE.
Orders on Blinkit were skyrocketing on New Year's Eve as India was preparing to ring in 2025. India's collective NYE shopping list was enormous and startling as per a post shared by Albinder Dhindsa, the CEO of app-based grocers, Blinkit, on X.com.
Zomato is at 5, Swiggy at 9, Blinkit at 10.
Quick commerce (qcom) industry is poised to lead gig workforce hiring in 2025, propelled by a surge in demand for faster deliveries, expansion by existing players, entry of new competitors, and evolving consumer preferences in the post-pandemic era, according to industry experts. The qcom industry currently employs nearly 260,000 people - around 200,000 delivery personnel and 60,000 dark store workers, according to TeamLease Staffing.
The filing of Swiggy's DRHP has led to direct comparisons with Zomato, which is a direct competitor in food delivery and the fast-growing quick-commerce segment where Blinkit (owned by Zomato) faces off against Instamart (and Zepto). In Q-commerce, Flipkart, Amazon, Reliance and Big Basket are all entering the space. All of them have deep pockets, hence competitive intensity will rise going forward.
... catch up with Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart and Zepto...
For food aggregator platform Swiggy, quick commerce (qcom) is proving to be a better growth opportunity than food delivery. Its qcom arm Instamart is rapidly outpacing its core food delivery vertical across several key financial metrics, the company's recently filed draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) shows.
'This is the age where if you Blinkit, you will get things in eight minutes.' 'But nothing will happen here in eight minutes. It takes at least eight years to do something.'
At a time when Flipkart has entered the quick-commerce race with a service called "Minutes", executives at rival players said they are in a wait-and-watch mode. They said they would be concerned only once the e-commerce firm is able to succeed in this space. The Walmart-owned firm's quick-commerce service has gone live in some parts of Bengaluru, putting it in competition with firms such as Zepto, Swiggy's Instamart, and Zomato's Blinkit.
In its highest ever reduction in seller fees, ecommerce giant Amazon India has introduced zero referral charges on over 12 million products on its platform that are priced below Rs 300. The move is aimed at boosting seller growth on Amazon.in and supporting hundreds of thousands small businesses across the country.
After a massive selloff in the shares of food delivery giants Zomato and Swiggy, analysts believe the time may be right for investors to start adding these stocks to their portfolio carts. Their optimism, they say, stems from the sharp correction in stock prices and valuations, which seem to have "over-baked" concerns about the two companies.
After making the model work in metro cities, players in the quick commerce sector are rapidly expanding their footprint into smaller tier 2 cities and markets beyond that ahead of the festival season.
Companies like Flipkart, Amazon and Meesho as well as quick commerce ones like Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy Instamart may create hundreds of thousands of seasonal jobs for the coming festival season.
The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) representing 70 million traders has written to Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, drawing his attention to the alleged violations of laws and regulations by quick commerce (qcom) companies.
Bengaluru-based Sunny Gupta had been searching for a laptop for months. In August, while sitting at a coffee shop, he decided to order an Acer Predator laptop - typically priced between Rs 95,000 and Rs 2.5 lakh - through the quick-commerce (q-com) platform Flipkart Minutes. "It took exactly 13 minutes from payment to receiving it at the Starbucks I ordered it to," he wrote in a now-viral post on social media platform X.
The Food Safety & Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) on Tuesday asked e-commerce and quick-commerce food operators to ensure a minimum shelf life of 30 per cent or at least 45 days before products expire at the time of delivery. The order follows rising concerns over violations of food safety standards in quick-commerce and e-commerce.
Fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) distributors' association has written to the finance ministry, highlighting concern over fund utilisation and fund accumulation by quick commerce companies and deep discounting of goods on their platforms. According to a recent letter seen by Business Standard, All India Consumer Products Distributors Federation (AICPDF) noted that its analysis indicated that approximately 80 per cent of these funds were directed toward customer acquisition strategies instead of creating cutting-edge innovations or sustainable growth models for the retail sector.
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has sought a meeting with quick-commerce (qcom) platforms like Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart and Zepto on Tuesday to discuss issues regarding violations of food safety standards, according to sources familiar with the matter. This comes at a time when there have been issues raised about food safety standard violations by qcom platforms for packaged food products, including violations related to expiry and best before dates.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances