Amazon’s Quick Commerce Gamble Faces Festive Season Litmus Test

For more than a decade, India’s ecommerce giants Amazon and Flipkart have battled it out every festive season with their mega sale campaigns — the Great Indian Festival and the Big Billion Days — drawing in millions of shoppers.

With quick commerce now seeing record adoption, a host of platforms are now vying for a bigger slice of festive spending. Amazon, though a late entrant to the quick commerce race, isn’t ready to miss out on the festive windfall either, thanks to its 10-minute delivery offering, Amazon Now. 

After pilot runs in Bengaluru (December 2024) and Delhi (July 2025), the Amazon Now service has just been rolled out in Mumbai, just ahead of the festive shopping frenzy. 

According to the company, the response in the first two cities exceeded expectations, with daily orders growing 25% month-on-month and Prime members tripling their purchase frequency after adopting Amazon Now.

This makes us wonder: how exactly is Amazon positioned to cash in on the festive mania with its toe now in the quick commerce waters? Let’s find out…

Breaking Into Mumbai: A Strategic Gambit

Amazon’s decision to roll out its 10-minute delivery service, Amazon Now, in Mumbai just days ahead of the annual festive sales is far from accidental; it’s strategic. 

“Launching Amazon Now during this window allows Amazon to ride the festive shopping wave while introducing the service to a large, motivated audience. It also increases the likelihood of long-term adoption — a shopper who tries quick commerce for the first time during Diwali and enjoys the convenience is far more likely to stick,” said Satish Meena, the founder of consulting firm Datum Intelligence.

Meena added that entering Mumbai at a time when consumers are in a high-frequency, high-spend mode can accelerate the adoption of Amazon Now more efficiently than during regular months, while simultaneously building a habit.

From a competitive standpoint, Amazon’s timing also responds to the growing dominance of quick commerce players like Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart, and Zepto. 

Sachin Taparia, chairman and CEO of LocalCircles, noted that while the absolute numbers for a single city — Mumbai or Delhi NCR — may appear modest on their own, the strategic impact of Amazon’s move could be significant. 

“If a consumer orders across multiple Amazon services — Now, Fresh, and Prime — Amazon can retain engagement that might otherwise have been lost to other standalone fast-delivery platforms,” Taparia said, adding that the Mumbai launch, therefore, is more about customer stickiness than about growth.

An Execution-Heavy Road Ahead

The company plans to set up 300 dark stores by the end of 2025, as per reports. It has already established more than 100 micro-fulfilment centres and plans to add hundreds more across Bengaluru, Delhi, and Mumbai. The service will continue expanding to more neighborhoods in these cities, with plans to launch in additional cities in the coming months, an Amazon spokesperson told Inc42.

However, building a competitive quick commerce network is far from straightforward, and success will hinge only on the seamless integration of sourcing, inventory management, logistics, and last-mile delivery. 

“Each dark store needs to maintain high fulfilment rates across hundreds of SKUs, ensuring that customers receive orders within 10–15 minutes. Any gap in coverage or stock availability can immediately erode trust — and in quick commerce, trust is as important as speed. Amazon, despite its broader supply chain capabilities, will face the challenge of building this intricate ecosystem from scratch, city by city,” Meena said.

Indeed, execution-heavy operations of quick commerce will be the biggest hurdle for the ecommerce giant, which does not have 10-minute delivery in its DNA. 

Dark stores must be optimally located to minimise delivery times, inventory must be replenished in near real-time, and last-mile delivery needs to be coordinated across dense urban traffic. 

Given Amazon’s late entry to the quick commerce realm, it will have to accelerate dark store setup while maintaining service reliability to compete with players who have spent years optimising these processes.

Even Flipkart’s quick commerce arm, Minutes, faced similar challenges. Launched in August 2024, Minutes has struggled to establish a strong foothold due to its limited product assortment and constrained delivery network, as per industry sources.

Final Cog In The Amazon Wheel?

During the Indian festive season, players like Blinkit, Zepto, and Swiggy Instamart rely heavily on discounts and cashback to attract and keep customers. While these promotions boost short-term engagement, the true advantage lies in loyalty, trust, and ecosystem integration.

“Amazon stands out in these areas,” Meena said.

He added that Amazon’s biggest differentiation stems from its Prime customer base, which consists largely of high-income, urban households that already trust the platform for reliability and service. “By introducing Amazon Now to these users, the company can cross-sell quick commerce alongside existing services such as Fresh and Prime, thereby consolidating household spend within its ecosystem.” 

The quick commerce push also comes at a time when the ecoomerce giant has seen broader improvements in operational performance. The marketplace arm, Amazon Seller Services, sharply reduced losses in FY25 to INR 374.3 Cr from INR 3,469.5 Cr in FY24. 

This marks the second consecutive year of loss trimming, thanks to a strong uptick in operating revenue, which crossed the INR 30,000 Cr mark in FY25 from INR 25,406 Cr a year ago. 

In the short term, however, the expansion of Amazon’s quick commerce operations is expected to exert a modest negative impact on operational costs, margins, and overall profitability.

This is because setting up dark stores, ensuring high fulfilment rates, and managing rapid logistics required for 10-minute deliveries entail significant upfront investment.

However, once consumers become accustomed to using Amazon Now as a channel for fast delivery alongside Prime and Fresh, the Amazon ecosystem is likely to generate higher repeat orders and cross-selling opportunities. But for now, the real question is: can Amazon turn this quick commerce push into a long-term growth engine, or will the upfront costs and fierce competition temper its ambitions?

[Edited by Shishir Parasher]