Zepto is an Indian company founded by Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra. Just like every student who graduated in 2020, they had looked forward to their graduation, but COVID-19 had other plans. Since Stanford had gone completely online, the two of them stayed in their respective homes in India and had a significant amount of time to just think. Grocery shopping, as I’m sure populations across the globe would agree, had become more difficult with the onset of rules that came with the pandemic. A lot of India’s grocery-store apps were lacking, providing neither speedy delivery or accurate deliveries, and the two realized that they could create something better. Zepto is an app that promises groceries that are delivered in 10 minutes or less. According to Forbes, “Today, their company, Zepto, which is just under two years old, delivers hundreds of thousands of orders per day; generates several hundred million dollars in annual revenue; and has raised over $360 million in funding from investors like YC Continuity, Contrary Capital, Glade Brook Capital Partners, and Lachy Groom, most recently a Series D that values the company at over $900 million.”
India is obviously a very dense and chaotic place which makes time extremely variable. The edge over other companies comes from the condensed time within the dark store, from packing to checkout. In the Forbes article they were able to interview Aadit who said, “On the software side, we built things like a navigation system for packers to find the most ideal path inside the dark store; a scanning system to give packers the ability to scan and automatically verify items; a color-coded system on riders’ devices so that they can match their orders faster during the handshake process between packer and rider instead of looking at an order ID.On the operational side, it comes down to the way we designed racks, chillers, freezers, and handover stations. Even the way we designed the SKU maps takes into account having the fastest-moving products near the exit. Everything is built for maximum speed efficiency.”
Similar to what we have discussed in class, the idea of a quick online grocery-shopping app already existed. The two simply took the structure that already existed and improved upon it. They took the time that many deemed unfortunate and transformed prior prototypes into something extremely profitable. Zepto will most likely be making billions of dollars in revenue within the next 1-5 years, according to Aadit. They started small, and now they are scaling their business 3-5x. It really makes one think and look around for the next thing that might need improved upon. This was something that was made necessary by the pandemic, and they filled that need. It’s as simple as that.
Zepto website: https://www.zeptonow.com/
The fact that it delivers groceries so fast in a country where there are so many people is truly the most innovative part of this. Improving upon an existing structure is a valid method of entrepreneurship.
I know my mom would absolutely love this. It’s baffling how they can promise groceries under ten minutes to everyone. It makes me wonder how they are able to get groceries to people in the countryside. Maybe it’s just because India is so dense and if they were to expand this idea to other countries, they would have to really innovate. This business must be really hard to pull off which is what makes it so brilliant.
I thought that was a very innovative idea and that they made the most out of an opportunity. COVID shutting everything down hurt businesses but at the same time helped them as well. This is a great example of how COVID helped a business. Instead of moping around and complaining about being isolated, they created a great online shopping experience that was extremely helpful for their country.
Imagine not having to go to the grocery store! That would just be amazing. They came up with the idea at a time it was very vital to do so. I mean I personally do not like going grocery shopping. I usually get sidetracked and don’t even get what I went there for. It also usually isn’t the shortest trip either. By being able to provide a way to get groceries in 10 minutes during COVID was very beneficial. Especially with the whole lockdown and everything this would save people the stress and the hassle of finding ways to get groceries themselves. On DoorDash they have similar features of being able to get groceries from other places which I have found to be very beneficial while being at college.