Zepto’s Aadit Palicha says fast trade not hurting kirana stores: ‘Will create more jobs than rail in 2-3 years’

Zepto founder Aadith Palicha claimed that the fast commerce platform did not harm traditional kirana stores and that the industry created jobs in the economy.

In an interview with Moneycontrol, Palicha said the idea that traditional kirana stores are influenced by fast commerce brands like Zepto, Blinkit, BigBasket and Instamart is wrong. He calls it “anecdote” and “dataless narrative.”

He further cited data from the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT). According to reports, grocery and household consumer goods will increase by $46 billion between fiscal years 2022-23 and 2023-24.

Of the new $46 billion, less than $5 billion belongs to fast commerce platforms. According to Palicha, the remaining $41 billion belongs to kirana stores.

“Their own data shows that fast trade is unlikely to cause kirana stores to shrink,” he said.

Palicha also denied accusations of predatory pricing, saying Zepto sold just 0.2% of its products below cost in fiscal 2024.

He claims to cut out all “inefficient” middlemen in the supply chain, thereby lowering the price of the product.

“We create structural deflationary value, we eliminate all the inefficient middlemen, distributors, wholesalers that exist in the grocery value chain and we go directly to the manufacturer,” Pallicha said.

Predatory pricing concerns eased

“We’ve structurally lowered our prices and we’ve been able to be profitable, which means we’re not predatory pricing, we’re actually deflationary,” he said. He claims that fast is deflationary and this is demonstrated by profitability.

Additionally, he said the company is expanding and increasing capital expenditures. The Zepto CEO said the fast commerce brand also creates many jobs in the economy.

“We’ve added 25,000 jobs in the last 90 days, including delivery partners, pickers and packers, truck drivers, fruit and vegetable packers, local entrepreneurs in stores and more,” Palicha said.

He said the industry created 450,000 jobs, while Zepto itself created 150,000 jobs. The average salary for jobs created by Zepto is $23,200, he said.

“Rapid commerce will create more jobs than Indian Railways in the next 2-3 years and we should celebrate this,” he added.