Can Quick Commerce Survive Without Discounts?

Quick commerce wasn’t just built on speed. It was addicted to discounts. Ten-minute deliveries hooked users, but ₹99 carts, free shipping and perpetual offers turned impulse into habit. But what’s changing now isn’t consumer hunger, but investor patience. As public markets demand profits, quick commerce is finally being asked the question it kept dodging: what happens when the discounts disappear? 

That question is increasingly shaping strategy at Swiggy. When the company reported its second-quarter results in October last year, it signalled a deliberate move away from deep-discount-driven, volume-focused growth, even as competition intensified. By Q3 FY26, that stance was backed by numbers. Swiggy said it had consciously chosen not to chase growth that sacrifices average order values (AOVs) and margins. Its quick commerce contribution margin improved incrementally to -2.5%, aided by lower platform-funded discounts and better utilisation of dark stores, as per the publicly available report.  

The trade-off, however, was visible on the profit-and-loss statement. Adjusted EBITDA losses widened to ₹908 crore, driven by continued investments in brand and performance marketing, even as operating leverage improved adjusted EBITDA margins to -11.4%. In the December quarter, Swiggy said advertising growth, lower discounts and operating leverage delivered over 100 basis points of planned improvement in contribution margins. Most of those gains were reinvested into a no-fee-above-₹299 campaign, limiting the net improvement to 9 basis points. Even so, the company said 25% of its dark stores were contribution-positive, largely due to higher utilisation rather than deeper discounting.  

What it feels like is at the heart of Swiggy’s argument is a behavioural one. Very low AOV orders, the company has argued, have limited monetisation potential. Heavy discounting may inflate volumes, but it also trains consumers to shop only when incentives are high — encouraging basket-splitting and deal-seeking behaviour that is expensive to sustain and difficult to reverse.  

That logic extends beyond one company. As Shubhranshu Singh, board member at the Effie Lions Foundation, put it, “Discount-based expansion is essentially a way to buy behavioural change and everyone does it to get consumers comfortable and build habit.” The real test, he said, is whether that behaviour survives once subsidies are withdrawn.  

Public markets impose discipline  

This distinction matters far more for listed companies than for privately funded ones. Public markets impose a discipline that private capital can defer. If meaningful demand exists only at heavily subsidised prices, Singh has argued, the market risks becoming financially engineered rather than commercially validated. In his view, quick commerce is unlikely to become a universal mass utility, and is more likely to settle into a narrower, premium urban service where time sensitivity, trust and reliability matter more than price.  

A similar conclusion has emerged at Zomato, particularly in its quick commerce arm, Blinkit. Speaking during the company’s Q3 FY26 results, Albinder Dhindsa, now CEO of Eternal, said he did not believe a strong quick commerce business could be built on the back of heavy discounting. While the company would remain watchful of competitive tactics, he said it would respond only if those moves began to meaningfully impact Blinkit’s business — even if that came at the cost of margins.  

For both Swiggy and Eternal, this caution is shaped by experience. In food delivery, both platforms spent years unwinding discount-led growth — gradually introducing delivery fees, platform charges and higher minimum order values. Consumers initially resisted, but over time adapted. Ordering food today costs more than it did five years ago, yet volumes have largely held up.  

Quick commerce, however, is a tougher reset. Food delivery is discretionary; groceries are habitual and price-sensitive. Paying extra for a restaurant meal feels different from paying extra for milk, bread or vegetables available a short walk away.  

The pressure is also visible beyond platforms, particularly among consumer goods brands plugged into the quick commerce ecosystem. Rakesh Raghuvanshi, Founder and CEO of Sekel Tech, has argued that margin stress in Indian CPG is not driven by discounts alone, but by structurally inefficient demand creation. Training consumers to expect sub-₹300 baskets with instant delivery, he said, breaks economics across picking, warehousing, last-mile delivery and brand trade spends.  

Raghuvanshi pointed to cost structures to underline the problem. In mature FMCG markets, last-mile logistics typically account for 6–8% of GMV. In India’s quick commerce model, that cost can exceed 12–15% for low-AOV orders, making sustained discounting mathematically difficult. Remove deep discounts, he argued, and the market does not disappear — it resets, with demand shifting towards planned weekly or monthly household baskets rather than impulse-led ₹199 orders.  

Yet competition continues to complicate that reset. Zepto has continued to expand aggressively, using frequent promotions and rapid store additions to build scale. While the company has not publicly articulated a contrasting philosophy, its expansion keeps price expectations anchored low, making it harder for incumbents to pull back incentives without risking churn.  

This brings the debate back to its core. If discounts fade, will consumers still pay for speed — or was speed only attractive because someone else was footing the bill?  

And with Zepto also preparing for an eventual IPO, the unanswered question is whether it, too, will be forced to embrace the same discipline as Swiggy and Eternal — or whether quick commerce still has room for one more, expensive phase of cash-led growth.