Fabindia has already finalised terms with Instamart whereby a tenth of the unsold stock will be taken back by the apparel manufacturer, and there will be a no-return policy for consumers. Others like Woodland are negotiating for store-return.
Quick commerce firms currently do not have any return policy for products sold through their platform. These startups are hoping to exploit the growing fashion business, which is currently the second-largest selling category in India’s e-commerce industry after electronics and smartphones, accounting for around 20-25% of sales. Quick commerce companies are also foraying into electronics and smartphones as ET recently reported.
An executive said Arvind Fashions, which sells brands like Arrow, Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein and US Polo Assn, is in talks to sell innerwear and accessories like socks and belts through quick commerce. Puma, which sold jerseys during IPL through Zepto, is likely to expand the partnership to other products, he said. Currently, at the most, these platforms refund money for products with manufacturing defects.
Quick commerce firms are also negotiating to link retail store inventory across locations on their platforms to offer a wider product assortment and avoid the logistical challenge of keeping entire stocks in dark stores since apparel would occupy much more space due to variety, sizes and fits. Such deliveries may also take longer than 10-15 minutes as is the norm currently with quick commerce, executives said.
However, basic and fast-selling products like innerwear, socks, belts, white shirts, solid colour t-shirts, kurta, black trousers, blue jeans, black formal shoes, school shoes, clogs, home slippers or walking sneakers would be stocked in dark stores so they can be delivered in 10-15 minutes, the executives said.Woodland India chief executive Harkirat Singh said consumers are increasingly showing a propensity for instant delivery, and quick commerce can become big in fashion as well with already 30% of the company’s sales coming from e-commerce.In fact, the quick commerce platforms have recently made a soft-launch of fashion products. Swiggy Instamart is selling innerwear and basic colour t-shirts of Jockey and Adidas, while Blinkit is selling t-shirt, innerwear, track pants, some footwear, ethnic wear of Jockey, Pepe, Adidas and Manyavar. Zepto too has started selling Adidas and Jockey products. There is no return on these products.
Anupam Bansal, director, retail, at shoemaker Liberty said the company plans to sell basic products and not fashion wear through quick commerce, that too only on pre-paid mode to ensure chances of return are low.
“Fulfilment would be a challenge because at the end of the day, the fulfilment is happening either through the existing store network where they use only their pickup points, or they will invest in their warehouses to be able to do that commitment of 10 minutes which in the footwear industry is slightly more complicated. So, we want to sell very small merchandise like school shoes, chappals and basic shoes,” he said.
Swiggy, Blinkit, Zepto, Fabindia, Arvind Fashions and Puma didn’t respond to ET’s email queries till filing of this story.
Even in grocery and fast-moving consumer goods categories, quick commerce has become the fastest growing channel for large companies like Hindustan Unilever, ITC, Nestle, Parle Products and Adani Wilmar, accounting for 30-35% of their total e-commerce sales in FY24.
