Does it feel at times that Zepto, Blinkit, Instamart will try just about anything under the quick commerce format? Even the slightest hint of a shift in consumer behaviour is often enough for a new launch.

And as the biggest quick commerce companies search for high-margin categories to solve their profitability problem, their next big target is 10-minute medicine deliveries.

For quick commerce big three – Zepto, Blinkit and Instamart – success in pharma delivery is the next milestone they aim to achieve. The trio is aiming for a 20%-30% slice of India’s $66 Bn pharma opportunity that’s projected to reach $88 Bn by 2030.

While Instamart was a first-mover in the medicine delivery segment, making its foray late last year, Blinkit and Zepto caught up with the trend with prescription medicines, besides OTC drugs. What sets the three companies different from each other is their strategy.

But unlike dedicated players such as Plazza, these 10-minute medicine delivery players are currently still exploring the periphery of this segment. None of them has ventured deep into the pharmacy supply chain yet and therein lies a big challenge for the 10-minute medicine delivery market.

The Pharma Map For Zepto, Blinkit And Instamart

Swiggy-owned Instamart announced a partnership with fellow Prosus portfolio company Pharmeasy for medicine procurement and prescription verification. Eternal’s Blinkit, insiders claimed, is moving to own pharma SKUs and have in-house prescription verification to go beyond OTC.

Further, sources told Inc42 that Zepto is hiring licensed pharmacists from Mumbai and Bengaluru to enable 10-minute deliveries for prescription medicines.

Zepto’s pharma category manager Akash Bhatnagar said in a LinkedIn post that the company will procure all medicines and deliver them directly from its dark stores. “This approach ensures that quality and authenticity remain fully under our control,” he wrote, but it’s not clear where the company is procuring its medicines from.

“With an AOV (average order value) of over INR 1,000 in this class of medicines against an AOV of INR 600 in groceries, medicines can be a good margin addition for existing quick commerce platforms,” Alok Chawla, who founded Kiko Live to help retailers and pharmacy chains adopt quick commerce channels, told Inc42.

In a market laden with compliance burdens, strict regulatory checks and cost-overhauls, this move, according to industry stakeholders, can disrupt the local pharmacy sector to some extent.

This set off an alarm for medicine retailers. Days after Zepto announced the entry into medicine delivery, the All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists (AIOCD) wrote to the home ministry calling for a ban on 10-minute medicine deliveries.

Inc42 spoke to company sources and industry analysts to look into the playbooks of Zepto,........

© Inc42