New Delhi [India], September 25 (ANI): The rapidly growing India’s quick-commerce sector could see greater pricing discipline going ahead as platforms moderate discounts and raise delivery and cashback thresholds, suggesting a gradual shift in competition from aggressive price-led customer acquisition towards balancing growth with profitability, according to Jefferies.
“Overall, discounting remains a key acquisition lever, but intensity continues to moderate,” Jefferies said in a research report, adding that early signs of competition stabilising are visible through rising delivery and cashback thresholds.
The brokerage’s latest mystery-shopping exercise, conducted in Bengaluru, found average discounts of around 15 per cent across a sample grocery basket, excluding checkout coupons and cashback. Discounts ranged between 12 per cent and 19 per cent across the platforms tracked. Jefferies noted that while aggregate discounting is moderating, significant divergence remains at the category and individual product level.
Personal care remained the most heavily discounted category, with average discounts of 29 per cent, followed by basic staples and packaged food at 17 per cent each, according to the brokerage. Dairy products had the lowest average discount at 3 per cent. This indicates that platforms are continuing to use category-specific pricing rather than following a uniform discounting strategy across their grocery baskets.
The report also pointed to changes in customer incentives. Amazon Now raised minimum spending requirements for cashback offers by 7-25 per cent, while Zepto increased its free-delivery threshold from Rs 99 earlier in the year to Rs 199. The latter is now broadly aligned with thresholds at Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart and BB Now.
Jefferies said Blinkit and Swiggy Instamart have kept discounts broadly stable at 14-16 per cent since March 2026, which it viewed as indicative of a more disciplined pricing approach aimed at balancing growth and profitability. Zepto continued to offer the highest aggregate discount in the September basket at about 19 per cent, while DMart Ready also remained among the more aggressive players.
The sector continues to see user engagement, with SensorTower data showing a slight month-on-month increase in monthly active users across all tracked platforms in September, Jefferies said. However, monthly app downloads declined across all platforms during the month, clearly showing no impact in the overall industry growth.
At the company level, Flipkart has launched a standalone Flipkart Minutes app, while Zepto has maintained its discounting levels from previous checks. The report said Swiggy Instamart’s Maxxsaver proposition appears to be serving more as a retention and basket-building tool than as a deeper-discount format. (ANI)
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