Zomato and Blinkit
The quick commerce bet
By Rehearsal Pedagogy Initiative
Evaluate acquisition as a way to enter a new market. Students compare buying Blinkit with building or partnering, assess which capabilities transfer from food delivery and set conditions for continued investment.
- Format
- Reflective case
- Discipline
- Strategy
- Duration
- 75-minute session, with pre-class reading
- Length
- 21 pages
Teaching materials
Teaching notes and complete teaching materials require approved teaching access.
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Blinkit had pivoted fully to quick commerce only in January 2022, by Zomato's account. Zomato had been listed in India for less than a year and was still loss-making, and its food delivery business had not yet shown its mature margins. Buying Blinkit would give Zomato a second loss-making business.
Blinkit's May 2022 gross order value of INR 4,028 million came from its own unaudited management information. In Gurugram, which Zomato used as a sample market, Blinkit's gross order value had reached around 63 per cent of Zomato's food delivery gross order value.
In May 2022 Blinkit ran about 400 dark stores and had supply-chain capabilities that Zomato, with its large food delivery customer base and hyperlocal delivery network, did not yet own. Zomato could buy Blinkit outright, and its alternatives were to keep its minority stake and work with Blinkit as a partner or to build quick commerce itself. Whichever it chose, it could commit at the June meeting or wait for more evidence. Learners write in this edition as they read.
Includes an interactive artefact or workbook to support the learner’s thinking.*
*Some artefacts need AI access, available through Rehearsal OS.
Learning objectives
- Assess how far you can rely on each figure behind your recommendation, given who reported it and whether anyone had audited it.
- Recommend how and when Zomato should commit to quick commerce, treating the choice of ownership and the choice of timing as separate questions.
- Find the reasons for your recommendation that come from your own use of quick commerce, or from what you have learnt since June 2022, and the June 2022 evidence that could replace each.