What happens to quick commerce advertising when speed stops being the sell?

The quick commerce industry has recently seen a major intervention. Union Labour Minister Mansukh Mandaviya has pushed India's quick commerce platforms to remove the 10-minute delivery promise from their branding. Blinkit has complied, quietly replacing the messaging across its app. Other platforms are expected to follow.

For an industry that grew from $300 million in 2022 to $7.1 billion by fiscal year 2025, according to reports, the 10-minute promise was the foundation. The sector is projected to reach $35 billion by 2030. The 10-minute delivery promise was the emotional hook that separated quick commerce from traditional e-commerce. Even food delivery and e-commerce platforms adopted similar messaging to compete. While it laid a strong foundation, in today's times, fast delivery has become a habit and a convenience more than a priority. 

The change comes after gig delivery workers refused to work on New Year's Eve, demanding better pay, improved safety measures, and an end to ultra-fast delivery timelines. The worker strikes, combined with regulatory attention and a broader reset around safety and responsibility, have forced the industry to confront a question: what sells when speed can no longer be the headline?

The protests were not spontaneous. According to the Ministry of Labour and Employment's Annual Gig Work Bulletin for 2024-25, over 3.5 lakh individuals work in quick commerce delivery, with 60% earning between Rs 700 and Rs 1,200 daily. Nearly 40,000 delivery workers participated in a flash strike on December 25, 2025. A week later, the New Year's Eve strike intensified.

Workers demanded fair wages, safe working conditions, social security, and protection from unsafe work models and arbitrary ID blocking. Public reaction was swift. AAP Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha called gig workers the "invisible wheels of the Indian economy." Minister of Labour and Employment Vivek Venkatswamy expressed support for the strike on social media. 

Building meaning beyond the clock

For a category built on utility and immediacy, this poses a fundamental question: what does it take to build brand meaning once the sharpest utility cue is softened?

"The change in regulation will actually push marketers to move beyond the functional promise of speed, a proposition that was never truly differentiated," saysRonita Mukerjee, Executive Director of Client Services at Landor. "It creates an opportunity to dig deeper and ask, what does quick commerce actually enable in a consumer's life? Is it more ease, more confidence, or more everyday moments of joy?"

Upasna Dash, Founder and CEO of Jajabor Brand Consultancy, notes that while brands promote 10-minute delivery, the lived experience is usually 20-30 minutes, and consumers have become comfortable with this gap. "Quick commerce is not about urgency or essential care items; it is about ease. As speed becomes less central, brands need to shift communication towards convenience and accessibility, while also bringing forward the human side of the ecosystem," Dash says.

Vigyan Verma, Founder of The Bottom Line (and a Fractional CMO), argues that the regulation is superficial. "For instance, in the new regime, one could continue a claim 'Delivered in minutes', or 'The last minute delivery app', since no overt claim about 10 minutes is being made. Yet, these expressions imply instant deliveries," he points out. 

Because of heavy usage, the perception around instant delivery is already entrenched. Even after the 10-minute branding gets removed, the expectation of speedy delivery will remain.

Verma points out that from the gig worker's perspective, the reward structure is designed to maximise deliveries per day. This ecosystem, pushing towards instant deliveries, will remain intact even without an overt 10-minute claim.

For any meaningful change in gig worker conditions, the on-ground operating models of quick commerce platforms and not just their branding, will have to change fundamentally.

Shivaji Dasgupta, Founder and Managing Director of INEXGRO Brand Advisory, suggests that the primary value driver is convenience. "Easy access to an exhaustive inventory at competitive prices, without waiting. Ten-minute delivery was a key experience driver which can well be replaced by Quick Delivery and the ever-expanding category list," he notes. 

From a customer perspective, nothing significant has changed, as time-bound urgency was an emotional provocation and not a rational necessity.

Following the public announcement on gig workers’ strike, Zomato and Blinkit CEO Deepinder Goyal defended his platforms, noting that platforms recorded their highest-ever order volumes on New Year's Eve. Goyal argued that quick delivery times come from its operational efficiency and store density. 

On X, Goyal shared that the 10-minute promise does not put pressure on gig workers and is only mentioned because its stores are closer to customers.

By January 13, Blinkit had removed the 10-minute messaging. The interface now shows "BlinkIt in 15 minutes." In a regulatory filing, Eternal (BlinkIt’s parent company) clarified that the branding update would have no impact on its business model. However, the platform continues to display 10-minute delivery estimates where dark stores are within 1.4 km.

Winning on reliability, not speed

From a branding lens, where does real differentiation now come from? Upasna Dash observes that with multiple platforms offering similar timelines, "real brand differentiation lies in variety and quality of products, ease of use, strong UI/UX, value, and discount-led offerings." As quick commerce becomes embedded in daily life, deeper value propositions will define brand preference.

Tamanna Gupta frames this shift more starkly. "We've reached the point where speed is no longer a competitive advantage; it is just the cost of entry. When brands stop winning on the '10 minute' clock, they have to start winning on reliability," she says. 

The consumer hook has shifted from the dopamine hit of fast delivery to confidence that the brand will deliver every single time. Real differentiation now comes from inventory accuracy, quality of fresh produce, and ethics of the supply chain. "The hardest thing to sell creatively today is not fast, but better. Brands must address the reality that consumers are becoming more conscious of how their convenience is powered," Gupta adds.

Devarshy R. Ganguly, Founder and CEO of strategic consultancy, GLX Eminence, notes that the 10-minute promise fueled quick commerce but strained riders and road safety. 

"This reset is a welcome move. Less stress, fewer accidents, and a push toward sustainable practices that fit perfectly with India's rise as a top global economy, where responsible narratives build lasting brand 'dharma'," he says. 

Brands could pivot to "fast enough and safe for all," positioning themselves as reliable allies enabling life's rituals with care, not chaos. 

"Trust amidst impulse is toughest now — a possible solution via humanised dark stores, cultural wit (quirky billboards), and stories blending convenience with conscience," Ganguly suggests.

The economics of quick commerce advertising

Many brands invested in quick commerce media because the 10-minute promise created impulse and immediacy. Without that explicit cue, what makes quick commerce ad inventory valuable today?

Tamanna Gupta notes that while ad inventory on these platforms remains valuable, that value only holds if the platform is seen as responsible and stable.

Vigyan Verma maintains there will be no shift in advertising on quick commerce platforms, since the volume of business or users is not likely to decline. 

"I would disagree with the presumption that quick commerce is only a performance channel. No app or business is exclusively performance or branding. It's not binary," he says. The need to differentiate through branding will continue, not just as branded content but also in app experience, tonality of notifications and packaging materials.

Devarshy Ganguly points out that ad inventory stays premium from proximity in dense India. "Ad inventory stays premium from proximity in dense India (10-40% digital budgets). Budgets evolve and shift from performance sprints to brand marathons, nurturing future demand alongside food delivery — winners thrive by owning responsibility," he notes.

Upasna Dash observes that quick commerce is now deeply rooted in urban India and how people live, making displacement unlikely. Consumers are willing to sacrifice a few extra minutes for better value and broader access to products. Growth will come from adding new verticals and categories. 

She continues that many strong brands have already been built through quick commerce, and this shift will further open avenues for a wider variety of brands to use it as a channel to reach customers. 

“As a result, quick commerce will increasingly move beyond pure performance and play a larger role in brand building and discovery," Dash says.

Research supports this. According to reports, the quick commerce market in India is projected to grow by 16.07% from 2025-2029, reaching $9,771 million. User penetration, currently at 2.7% in 2025, is projected to rise to 4.0% by 2029.

Kaivalya Vohra, co-founder of Zepto, once said while running KiranaKart, "customers love a rapid delivery experience. Once we started delivering in 10 minutes, our NPS shot up and has constantly remained at around 85 with a 50%+ week-on-week user retention rate." Back then, large platforms took up to a week to deliver. That gap pushed Vohra and Aadit Palicha to build KiranaKart during the pandemic lockdown.

Today, that insight still holds, even if the messaging has changed. Quick commerce is built on urgency, making consumers loyal not to a time promise but to the platform that delivers fastest when needed. As behaviour shifts from kiranas to online ordering, convenience itself has become subjective; 10, 20 or 30 minutes can all qualify. The category now needs a redefinition beyond fixed delivery timelines.

The challenge for quick commerce platforms is no longer proving they can deliver fast. It is proving they can deliver responsibly while meeting the expectations they have spent years building.