After the success of 10-minute deliveries, quick commerce players are now planning to latch on to one of the favourite pastimes of Indian shoppers who love to return a good number of products they buy. So, enter “10-minute return”, which essentially means the product to be returned will be picked up within 10 minutes of raising a request. The current industry practice is one-hour to 48-hour returns for perishable products and one-hour to one week for other items.
Last week, Blinkit introduced returns and exchanges for clothing and footwear within 10 minutes in select cities. “Customers can initiate a return/exchange in case of a size or fit issue with the delivered product. This solves a crucial problem of size anxiety for categories like clothing and footwear,” Albinder Dhindsa, CEO, Blinkit said on X. Swiggy Instamart and Zepto are also reportedly testing the feature.
According to experts, as top q-commerce players focus on category expansion, 10-minute returns can give them an edge over e-commerce players who offer next-day to week-long return times. However, they also feel executing this may increase their logistics cost.
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“Returns and exchanges have long been a pain point for traditional e-commerce due to the high costs of reverse logistics, and 10-minute returns may further increase the burden,” said Param Patel, general partner, Volt VC told FE.
The ability to return products is a crucial factor in deciding the platform to purchase from, especially for newer categories that q-comm players are venturing into such as fashion, footwear and accessories. According to reports, these categories experience a high frequency of returns. Fashion and accessories see around 20% to 30% returns and electronics sees 3% to 15%. This is because of mismatches around fit, quality, colour and appearance in these categories despite the use of advanced technologies.
However, a key hurdle for q-comm players in 10-minute returns is the potential for inventory blockage as dark stores have limited space.
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