We’ve officially come full circle. Zepto now has... slotted deliveries. If you remember 2021, the whole premise of Zepto was to disrupt the slotted delivery model that BigBasket and Grofers had built their businesses on. Who waits for a slot when you can have it in ten minutes?
Fast forward to 2026, scheduled delivery has made a comeback.
I won’t call this ironic. It solves very specific, relatable friction points.
When everything moved to 10-minute delivery, it didn't eliminate the need for scheduled orders. There was always a segment of demand that slotted delivery served well, and that gap has quietly persisted.
And as quick commerce matures from a top-up play to a stock-up play, with AOVs trending toward ₹700-800, not every order is an impulse buy anymore. Some purchases are planned, and they don't need 10-minute urgency.
Does this change the economics? Not really. Consumer behavior has decisively shifted to instant delivery and platforms have no intention of reversing that. This is a convenience feature filling pockets of demand.
Slotted delivery probably contributes barely 1-2% to overall orders. It's a nice-to-have. But it does two smart things: demand smoothing during peak hours (when these apps literally shut down sometimes), and it lets Zepto serve use cases that instant delivery just can't, like having fresh veggies delivered at 7AM when your cook arrives.
Zepto isn't exactly going back to slotted delivery. It's just making sure no use case is left unserved. Qcomm disrupted slotted delivery only to eventually absorb it.