The quick commerce glossary for Indian brands.

The headline promise several Indian quick-commerce apps make: an order reaches the customer within about ten minutes of being placed. It is a marketing position and an operational target, not a measured result for every order.

In India. The promise is shown in the app as an estimated delivery time for the pin code you are in, and it changes with the nearest dark store, its load and the hour. The same product can show a shorter time on a Tuesday morning in one Gurugram sector and a longer one on a Friday evening two kilometres away.

What to check. Treat any delivery time as a reading taken at one place and one moment. It is a useful signal that a store is close and working. It says nothing about whether your product is in stock there, which is the fact that decides your sales. Rewalto does not measure delivery speed unless a page says so.

Related terms: ETA (estimated time of arrival), Dark store, Serviceability

Read more: Guide: pin-code shelf truth

The set of products a retailer, or one dark store, chooses to list. On a quick-commerce app the assortment is small compared with a marketplace, and it differs from one store to the next.

In India. A dark store carries a limited range because shelf space is tight. A pack that sits in the app's catalogue may still be missing from your neighbourhood store, so two shoppers in two pin codes see different assortments of the same brand.

What to check. A brand's real reach is the number of stores that actually carry a product, not the number of listings the app shows. When you plan a launch or a pack change, look at which SKUs each store holds, and treat gaps as a fact about the store, not automatically a fault in your supply.

Read the full entry: What is assortment in retail? Meaning in quick commerce

Related terms: SKU (stock-keeping unit), Listing, Availability

Read more: Guide: new product research

Whether a product can be bought right now at a given place. On quick-commerce apps it is a property of a product at a dark store, not of the product overall.

In India. A listing that reads in stock at one pin code can read unavailable at the next. Apps often keep the product page visible and show a greyed button or a notify option, so a page that loads is not proof that the product can be ordered.

What to check. Availability is the number to read before you spend on ads or a promotion. An in-stock rate is only meaningful with its denominator: how many products, how many pin codes and which day. A share such as 80% of listings in stock means little until you know how many stores were checked.

Read the full entry: What is on-shelf availability? Meaning and how to measure it

Related terms: Out of stock (OOS), Fill rate, Pin code

Read more: Guide: availability before retail media · The 10-Minute Shelf

How much a shopper puts in one order. Quick-commerce orders are often small, top-up baskets, and basket size sets how a brand's product competes for a place in it.

In India. A shopper ordering milk and bread at night may add one more item on impulse. That impulse slot is where a snack, a chocolate or a household staple wins or loses, and it is why pack size and price point matter more here than on a weekly marketplace order.

What to check. If your product only sells in larger baskets, small-cart fees and minimum order values can work against it. Ask which price and pack sit in the impulse range for your category, and whether a smaller pack would fit better.

Related terms: Minimum order value (MOV), Handling and small-cart fees, Pack size and price-pack architecture

Read more: Average order value

The dashboard a platform gives brands to see their own sales, ads and sometimes market data on that platform. It shows the platform's view of you, on the platform's terms.

In India. Platform tools such as Zepto's Atom and Blinkit's Brand Central are described in company statements and press coverage, and typically bundle sales and advertising figures. What each one includes, and what it costs, changes, so read the platform's current page rather than a third party's summary.

What to check. A portal shows your sales but not your rivals' shelf, and it covers one platform. A brand comparing platforms, or checking what shoppers see in a pin code, needs a reading taken from outside. Both views are useful and neither replaces the other.

Related terms: Retail media, Share of shelf (digital)

Read more: Rewalto Data: readings from outside the platform

The list of products a retailer holds on record, with their names, images, packs and prices. A quick-commerce catalogue is one list shared across stores, while stock is tracked store by store.

In India. Your brand may have thirty products in the app catalogue and only ten in stock in a given pin code. A wrong pack weight or an old image in the catalogue reaches every shopper in every city, which is why catalogue fixes are worth doing early.

What to check. Check the catalogue against your own product data: name, pack size, MRP and image. Errors here, such as the wrong pack size, also break comparisons across platforms, because a price only compares fairly for the same pack.

Related terms: Listing, SKU (stock-keeping unit), Pack size and price-pack architecture

Read more: Commerce data: what a record holds

An informal grouping of Indian cities by size and spending, often used to describe where a platform operates or where a brand sells. There is no single official list, so a tier means what the person using it says it means.

In India. Quick commerce began in the large metros and has moved into smaller cities. A brand that does well in Bengaluru and Mumbai may find a different mix, prices and stock in a tier 2 city, because dark-store density and shopper habits differ.

What to check. Ask for the list of cities behind any tier claim. Rewalto's coverage map lists the cities and pin codes it reads with a date, so a statement about a city stands on a named set rather than on a label.

Related terms: Pin code, Serviceability, Coverage

Read more: India coverage

The set of places, products and dates a reading actually covers. A figure without its coverage cannot be judged: 90% of what?

In India. A statement such as in stock on Blinkit in Delhi is only as good as the number of Delhi pin codes and products behind it. Coverage grows over time, so a comparison across months is fair only over a fixed set.

What to check. Always ask how many pin codes, how many products and which days. Rewalto publishes its holes beside its numbers for this reason, and the method page says how a figure has to be built before it is shown.

Related terms: Pin code, Source evidence, Availability

Read more: How The 10-Minute Shelf is measured · India coverage

A small warehouse, closed to walk-in customers, that holds a limited range of products to serve orders from the surrounding neighbourhood. Quick-commerce apps run many of them in each city.

In India. Each dark store serves a delivery radius, which in a dense city can cover parts of several pin codes. Stock, price and delivery time you see in the app come from the store the app assigns to your address, and a brand's product can be present in one dark store and absent from the one across the ring road.

What to check. Dark-store level is where availability is really decided. Reading at city level hides the gaps. When you review stock, ask how many stores a reading covers and whether the store list moves, because stores open, close and change range.

Read the full entry: What is a dark store?

Related terms: Delivery radius, Pin code, Assortment, Availability

Read more: Guide: pin-code shelf truth · India coverage

A product being removed from a retailer's catalogue so it can no longer be found or ordered. It is different from being out of stock, where the product page stays and the item is only unavailable.

In India. A product that disappears from search on an app might be delisted, might be out of stock everywhere in your pin code, or might have dropped in rank. From the outside these look alike for a day or two, and the difference matters for what you do next.

What to check. Keep a dated record of what the page showed before and after. If the listing is gone in several pin codes and stays gone, raise it with the platform with that evidence. A single missed reading is not proof.

Related terms: Out of stock (OOS), Search rank, Listing

Read more: Guide: rank drop or delisting

The area around a dark store within which the app will accept orders, fixed by how far a rider can travel inside the promised time.

In India. The radius is short, often a few kilometres, and is not the same as a pin code. A pin code is a postal area; a delivery radius is a circle of riding distance from one store, so a single pin code can be split between stores with different stock.

What to check. This is why a pin-code reading is a proxy for a store reading. It works well where one store serves a pin code and less well where several overlap. When you compare two pin codes, check whether they share a store.

Related terms: Dark store, Pin code, Serviceability

Read more: Guide: pin-code shelf truth

How far below the printed MRP a product is being sold, expressed as a percentage. It compares the selling price with the MRP on the pack.

In India. If a pack has an MRP of 100 rupees and the app sells it at 85 rupees, the discount depth is 15%. That example uses invented numbers for illustration. On quick-commerce apps the same pack can carry different discounts by app, city and hour.

What to check. Read it against the same pack. A deeper discount on a different pack size is not a like-for-like comparison, and a discount funded by the platform is different from one you pay for. Track discount depth over time to see whether a price move was one-off or a pattern.

Read the full entry: What is discount depth? Meaning and how to calculate it

Related terms: MRP (Maximum Retail Price), Selling price, Price gap

Read more: Guide: discount depth

The delivery time an app shows for your address and basket before you order. It is an estimate, and it moves with distance, store load and rider supply.

In India. The ETA is shown near the top of the app for the address you have set. It can differ between apps at the same address, and between two moments on the same day, and it can lengthen sharply when rain or a rush hits.

What to check. An ETA is a good signal that a dark store is near and busy. Quote it with the place and time of the reading, and do not treat it as an average. Rewalto does not report delivery speed as a measurement.

Related terms: 10-minute delivery, Dark store, Serviceability

The share of what a retailer ordered from a brand that the brand actually delivered. It measures the brand's supply performance towards the retailer, not what a shopper sees on the app.

In India. Several trade publications describe how quick-commerce platforms use a fill-rate floor to decide how much a brand is ordered and shown. The exact rules are the platform's own and are not public, so we treat those accounts as reports, not facts.

What to check. Fill rate lives in your purchase orders, which you hold and Rewalto does not. What an outside reading can add is the shelf side: whether the product was in stock at the pin code. Comparing the two often shows where supply is the cause and where it is not.

Read the full entry: What is fill rate? Meaning and formula for brands

Related terms: Availability, Out of stock (OOS), Replenishment

Read more: Blog: Blinkit fill-rate floor and levels

The extra charges an app adds to a basket, such as a handling fee, a delivery fee for small orders or a surge fee at busy times. They sit outside the product's own price.

In India. A shopper comparing a product at 60 rupees on two apps may pay different totals at checkout because of fees. Apps also change fee rules over time and by basket value.

What to check. Fees are not part of your product's selling price, so they do not show up in a price tracker for the product. They still shape whether a basket is placed at all, so keep them in mind when you read conversion or basket size.

Related terms: Minimum order value (MOV), Basket size, Selling price

Serving a very small area, down to a neighbourhood, with stock and prices that belong to that area. In retail, it is why the same app behaves differently street to street.

In India. A hyperlocal app assigns you a store by address. Two apartment towers on opposite sides of a road can be assigned to two different dark stores, each with its own stock, and so different offers.

What to check. Hyperlocal means averages hide the story. A national in-stock figure can be fine while a pin code you care about is empty. Decide the handful of pin codes that matter to you and read those directly.

Read the full entry: What does hyperlocal mean in quick commerce?

Related terms: Dark store, Pin code, Delivery radius

Instant delivery brings an order in minutes from a nearby dark store. Scheduled delivery brings it in a chosen slot, usually from a larger store or warehouse with a wider range.

In India. Some apps offer both, and a product missing from the instant range can still appear in the scheduled one. The two ranges, prices and stock states can differ, so a reading needs to say which one it saw.

What to check. Check which delivery mode a figure refers to before comparing apps. A brand may be strong in scheduled and absent in instant, which is a different problem from being out of stock.

Related terms: Dark store, Assortment, Availability

Of the products first seen on a shelf in one month, the share still listed some months later. It shows how many new launches last.

In India. Quick-commerce apps add new products often and drop slow ones quickly, because shelf space is limited. A launch that lands in a few dark stores may not survive if it does not sell through.

What to check. It tells a brand what to expect of a first quarter on the shelf, and it needs a fixed panel and enough months to mean anything. Rewalto plans to publish it only once the record is long enough, and does not quote a rate before then.

Related terms: New on shelf, Assortment, Delisting

Read more: Guide: new product research

One product's entry on an app: its name, images, pack, price and buy button. A listing can exist without the product being in stock.

In India. On quick-commerce apps a listing belongs to the catalogue while stock is held store by store, so the same listing can be live in one pin code and greyed out in another. Variants such as pack sizes are usually separate listings.

What to check. Audit your own listings the way a shopper meets them: search for the product, open the page in a few pin codes, and check the title, pack, image and price. Errors here are cheap to fix and reach every shopper.

Related terms: Catalogue, SKU (stock-keeping unit), Search rank

Read more: Listing on a marketplace

The smallest basket an app will accept, or the value below which it adds a fee. It varies by app, city and time.

In India. A shopper who wants only one item may be pushed to add another to reach the threshold. That pushes companion products into baskets, which is a chance for a brand whose pack fits the gap.

What to check. Watch which price points fall under and over the threshold in your category. A pack priced awkwardly against the common thresholds can lose out at the last step.

Read the full entry: What is minimum order value on quick-commerce apps?

Related terms: Basket size, Handling and small-cart fees

The highest price a retailer may charge for a packaged product in India, printed on the pack and inclusive of all taxes. A retailer can sell below it, never above.

In India. Under India's Legal Metrology rules for packaged commodities, the MRP has to be declared on the pack. Quick-commerce apps show the MRP struck through beside a lower selling price, and the gap between the two is the discount shoppers see.

What to check. MRP is the anchor for every price comparison: it should match your own price list for that exact pack. A mismatch between the app's MRP and the pack is worth raising, because it changes every discount figure computed from it.

Read the full entry: What is MRP? Maximum retail price meaning in India

Related terms: Selling price, Discount depth, Price gap, Pack size and price-pack architecture

Read more: Guide: discount depth · MRP on a marketplace

Products first seen on a retailer's shelf within a chosen period. It is what a shelf record can say about launches without seeing anyone's sales.

In India. Fast-delivery apps add products in waves, often in one city first. A product that appears in Bengaluru in one month can take weeks to reach other cities, so timing by place matters.

What to check. Use it to watch competitors' launches and formats in your category. It shows presence, not demand, so do not read a new listing as a success. Pair it with how long the product stays.

Related terms: Launch survival, Assortment, SKU (stock-keeping unit)

Read more: New product research

Organic results are placed by the app's own ranking. Sponsored results are placed because a brand paid, and are usually marked with a tag such as Ad.

In India. On quick-commerce search, the first few rows can be paid, and the label is small. Where an app gives no readable flag for a paid slot, an outside reading cannot separate the two, and we do not pretend to.

What to check. If you track rank, record whether a position was organic or sponsored where the app says so. Paying to lift a position you already hold organically is spend you can avoid.

Read the full entry: What is the difference between organic and sponsored results?

Related terms: Search rank, Retail media, Share of search

Read more: Guide: organic rank on Blinkit and Zepto

A product that cannot be ordered because the store has none. On quick-commerce apps it is a state of a product at one dark store at one moment.

In India. Apps show it as an unavailable label, a greyed add button or a notify me prompt. A product can be out of stock in your pin code every evening and back by morning, so a single daytime reading misses the pattern.

What to check. Count how often and how long, not only whether. Repeated evening gaps point to replenishment timing; a long run points to supply or a listing problem. Record the pin code and time with every reading.

Read the full entry: What does out of stock mean on quick-commerce apps?

Related terms: Availability, Replenishment, Fill rate

Read more: Guide: stock, price and rank alerts

Pack size is how much a unit contains. Price-pack architecture is the planned ladder of sizes and prices a brand offers, such as a small trial pack, a standard pack and a family pack.

In India. Indian shoppers respond strongly to price points, so brands sell trial packs at a low rupee value. On quick commerce, a compact pack that fits a small basket can move differently from a large one at the same price per gram.

What to check. Compare like with like: price per 100 grams or per unit, never the shelf price alone. Check that each pack listed on an app carries the right weight in the title, because a mismatch breaks comparisons.

Read the full entry: What is price-pack architecture? Pack size explained

Related terms: MRP (Maximum Retail Price), Price gap, Basket size

Read more: Guide: new product research

The six-digit postal code India Post assigns to a delivery area. Quick-commerce apps use the address, and so the pin code, to decide which store serves you and what you see.

In India. The first digit of a pin code marks a broad postal region, and each code covers a set of localities. Two neighbouring pin codes can be served by different dark stores, and a large pin code can be split across several, so a pin code is a workable but imperfect stand-in for a store.

What to check. Pin code is the unit of most shelf readings because a shopper sets an address, not a store. Pick the pin codes that matter to your sales and read them individually. Rewalto lists the pin codes it reads, with a date, on its coverage page.

Related terms: Dark store, Delivery radius, Serviceability, Coverage

Read more: Guide: pin-code shelf truth · India coverage

The difference between what the same pack costs on two apps, or between an app's price and the MRP. It is meaningful only for the same pack at the same time.

In India. The same 500 gram pack can sell at different prices on Blinkit, Zepto and Instamart in one pin code, and the difference can flip within a day. Marketplace prices for the same item can differ again.

What to check. Checking the pack first avoids false gaps. A verified same-pack gap is a fact you can take to a platform or use in pricing. An unverified one is noise, so log the pack size, time and pin code with it.

Read the full entry: What is a price gap? Meaning and how to measure it

Related terms: MRP (Maximum Retail Price), Selling price, Pack size and price-pack architecture, Discount depth

Products a retailer sells under its own name, made by a third party. On quick-commerce apps they sit on the shelf beside national brands.

In India. Several apps and grocers carry own-label staples, often positioned at a lower price. A search for a category can show the retailer's own product next to yours, sometimes ahead of it.

What to check. Watch how own-label products are priced and placed against yours in the same pin codes, and respond from evidence, not from a single screenshot. Note that the retailer may be your partner and your competitor at once.

Read the full entry: What is a private label? Meaning for brands in India

Related terms: Search rank, Price gap, Assortment

Read more: Guide: private label on the digital shelf

Retail that delivers groceries and everyday items in minutes from nearby dark stores, ordered through an app. It sits between a corner shop and an online marketplace.

In India. Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy Instamart are the names most brand teams track, with BigBasket, Flipkart Minutes and Amazon Now in the same space. Rewalto's coverage page lists which apps, cities and pin codes it reads and when that list was last updated.

What to check. For a brand it is a different shelf: small ranges, fast changes, and stock that varies by store. It rewards brands that know their pin-code level position and punishes those who look only at national averages.

Read the full entry: What is quick commerce? Meaning and how it works in India

Related terms: Dark store, Hyperlocal, 10-minute delivery

Read more: India coverage · Rewalto Data

How and how often a dark store receives new stock. It decides how long a product stays out of stock once it sells out.

In India. Dark stores restock through the day in cycles. A fast-selling product may sell out between cycles, which shows up as a regular gap at the same hour. Brands with slower supply lines feel this more.

What to check. If gaps repeat at the same time, share that pattern with your supply team and the platform. It points to timing, not demand. A single random gap is less useful than a repeated one.

Related terms: Out of stock (OOS), Fill rate, Availability

Advertising a brand buys on a retailer's own app or site, such as sponsored search slots and banners. The retailer sells the space and reports the results.

In India. Quick-commerce apps run retail media inside search and category pages. Platforms report ad performance in their own portals, and a brand cannot see how rivals' spend affects its rank without an outside reading.

What to check. Check availability before you spend. An ad for a product that is out of stock in the target pin codes pays for a click that cannot become an order.

Read the full entry: What is retail media? Meaning for brands in India

Related terms: Organic vs sponsored results, Brand portal, Availability

Read more: Guide: availability before retail media

Where a product appears when a shopper searches in the app. It belongs to a query, a pin code and a moment, and is not a fixed property of the product.

In India. Searching for protein powder in one pin code returns an order that can differ from another pin code and from an hour later. Apps mix organic results, sponsored slots and own-label products, and use the store's stock, so a product can rank well in one store and vanish in the next.

What to check. Fix your queries and pin codes and record every reading with time. A one-off rank screenshot is an anecdote. A dated series over the same queries shows whether a move is real.

Related terms: Organic vs sponsored results, Share of search, Delisting

Read more: Guide: organic rank on Blinkit and Zepto · Search rank on a marketplace

The price an app actually charges for a product right now, at or below the MRP. It can change by app, city, store and hour.

In India. A pack with an MRP of 100 rupees might be 92 rupees in one city and 88 in another on the same day. That example uses invented numbers for illustration. Apps also run short campaigns that change the selling price for a few hours.

What to check. A single price reading says little. Keep a dated series per pin code and pack. Tell apart a temporary campaign from a lasting price move before you react.

Read the full entry: What is selling price? Selling price vs MRP explained

Related terms: MRP (Maximum Retail Price), Discount depth, Price gap

Read more: Guide: discount depth

Whether an app will deliver to a given address at all. A pin code can be serviceable for one app and not for another, and for one delivery mode and not another.

In India. A shopper types an address, and the app either shows products or says it does not deliver there yet. Apps add serviceable areas as they open dark stores, so the map keeps moving.

What to check. Serviceability caps your reach: a brand cannot sell where the app does not deliver. When you compare a brand's presence across cities, separate places where the product is missing from places where the app is absent.

Read the full entry: What is serviceability? Pin code serviceability explained

Related terms: Pin code, Dark store, Delivery radius, Coverage

Read more: India coverage

The share of top search results, for a set of queries, that belong to a brand. It measures how visible the brand is when shoppers look for the category.

In India. On a quick-commerce app the first screen holds only a handful of products, so a share of the top rows is a strict measure. It depends on the query, the pin code and whether sponsored slots are counted.

What to check. Say what queries, what pin codes and how many rows a figure uses. Compare only over the same set. If sponsored rows are included, say so, because they change what the number means.

Read the full entry: What is share of search? Meaning and how to measure it

Related terms: Search rank, Share of shelf (digital), Organic vs sponsored results

Read more: Share of search on a marketplace

The share of a category's visible products on an app that belong to a brand. It is the online version of counting how much of a physical shelf a brand holds.

In India. On a quick-commerce category page, share of shelf can be counted as listings, as visible positions or as in-stock listings, and each gives a different answer. A brand can hold a large share of listings but a small share of what is actually in stock.

What to check. Define the count before you quote it. State the category, the pin codes, the date and the denominator. Rewalto does not publish a share number without them.

Read the full entry: What is share of shelf? Meaning and how to calculate it

Related terms: Share of search, Availability, Assortment

Read more: Guide: digital share of shelf

One distinct product you can stock and sell, such as a particular flavour in a particular pack size. Two sizes of the same product are two SKUs.

In India. A brand's 30 SKUs on the app catalogue may map to a smaller set in one dark store. The same product in a 200 gram and a 500 gram pack is two SKUs with different MRPs, and each has its own stock state.

What to check. Count SKUs when you describe reach: how many of your SKUs are listed, and how many are in stock in a pin code. It stops an average over a long tail of slow SKUs hiding a problem on your bestsellers.

Read the full entry: What is a SKU? Stock keeping unit meaning and examples

Related terms: Listing, Assortment, Pack size and price-pack architecture

Read more: SKU on a marketplace

The record kept with a reading to show where it came from: the page address, the time it was read and the exact text the figure came from.

In India. A price or stock figure taken from a Blinkit page at a pin code on a given day is only as credible as its source. Keeping the page address, the time and the text the figure came from lets a brand show a buyer what the app displayed, not what a report says it displayed.

What to check. Evidence turns an argument into a conversation. When a category manager doubts a stock gap, a dated reading with the pin code and its source is harder to dismiss than a chart. Ask any vendor whether every figure has a source behind it.

Related terms: Coverage, Availability, Delisting

Read more: How The 10-Minute Shelf is measured