'Stand in line, it's crowded': Zepto's Aadit Palicha says he loves DMart but…

For everyone who uses their smartphones to shop from the basic amenities to discretionary products is aware of the shift in the way Gen Z shops. Long gone are the days when you had to plan your day around grocery shopping or had to step out from the confines of your homes to purchase appliances or clothes. In short, that is the key difference between a company like DMart and Zepto in the words of Gen Z entrepreneurs Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra. 

Zepto co-founder Aadit Palicha said in a conversation with Nikhil Kamath in the latest episode of his podcast, ‘WTF is the Next Gen Thinking?’ that this generation seeks good service at a reasonable cost. Palicha was a guest at the podcast, along with Zepto co-founder Kaivalya Vohra, Navya Naveli Nanda, founder of Project Naveli and co-founder of Aara Health, and Bollywood actor and singer Tara Sutaria. 

“Traditionally if you look at consumption in the past couple of decades, if you are getting something of value as a consumer, you usually have to fight for it. I love DMart by the way but DMart is an example…phenomenal business but if you want to buy their products, it’s a pain…it’s a fight. You stand in line, there is no proximity, you have to drive there, it is crowded, the cashier might not be available…it is not just a good feeling. That’s basically the cost of getting products for cheap,” said Palicha. 

He said that Gen Z thinks of how to get good service but not at an exorbitant cost. Good service is table stakes now, he said. 

“What this generation gets that a lot of what the generations in the past haven’t got is that good service does not mean premium or luxury. Good service is now like table stakes. If you are not serving somebody well, it does not make you a budget player, it just makes you a player that is not seen very positively. I think what this generation is going for is good, high-quality service at a reasonable cost. They are more demanding in that way,” said Palicha.

The Zepto co-founder said that considering the same expansion rate and the same level of marketing, they are growing “faster”. Some of it is because of structural efficiency and some of it is because their customer experience is improving, he explained. 

Speaking about what’s growing the fastest in their electronics category, Palicha said that D2C brands such as the “boATs of the world and the Noise of the world” are growing really fast.

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