Q-commerce, also referred to as quick commerce, is a type of e-commerce where emphasis is on quick deliveries, typically in less than an hour.[1] Q-commerce originally started with food delivery and it still represents the largest chunk of the business. It has quickly expanded to other categories particularly for grocery delivery, medicines, gifts, and apparel etc.[2] Since early 2020, the restrictions imposed due to COVID-19 pandemic gave a major boost to q-commerce as it allowed retailers to remain operational via quick home deliveries.[3] These prolonged restrictions resulted in long term consumer behavior shift towards quick deliveries, and established q-commerce as the third generation of commerce.[4]
Companies in q-commerce include Meituan, Gojek, Grab, Delivery Hero, Glovo, BigBasket, Blinkit, Swiggy, Rappi, GoPuff, Instacart, Zepto and Postmates.