Blinkit, Zepto, Instamart, JioMart, DMart: Jefferies orders groceries to find best discounts

Foreign brokerage Jefferies compared discounts on grocery items across various e-commerce portals and quick commerce platforms and found that DMart Ready offers the highest discounts on maximum retail price (MRP) closely followed by JioMart and Flipkart.

The research note shows that quick commerce firms — Blinkit, Zepto, and Swiggy Instamart — offer the lowest discounts of 7-11% due to their focus on convenience and faster delivery over value.

Among the quick commerce players, Blinkit had the highest discount at 11%, with a 22% discount in the home care segment, 15% in basic staples, and 14% in personal care. Instamart is close at 10%, while Zepto and Dunzo had a 7% discount for the sample basket, says Jefferies.

The brokerage's sample basket included over 30 products with a good mix of staples, packed food, and home care typically consumed by an urban upper-middle-class family. "The idea is to compare discounts, offers, private labels, and delivery charges across players," Jefferies says.

Discounting was the highest in personal care and home care at 16-17%, followed by basic staples (15%) and beverages (13%). Dairy (4%) and packaged food (9%) had the lowest discounts.

At 12%, BigBasket had the lowest discount among traditional e-grocers.

According to Jefferies, Reliance Retail has a widespread private label portfolio available across most categories, excluding dairy. "If we were to replace the popular brands with RR's private labels, it would result in a savings of 33% against the MRP (and 22% against prices on JioMart for popular brands)," the brokerage says.

Delivery is free for large orders across most traditional e-grocery platforms. JioMart does not charge any fee, regardless of order size. If the basket value is more than ₹600, Flipkart and BigBasket do not charge. Other players charge ₹15-60 depending on the basket value, the research note shows.

However, quick commerce players levy additional charges, which are fixed like packaging or handling, and dynamic charges like demand surge charges, late night, and bad weather charges.

E-commerce platforms have also partnered with banks and payment wallets to offer instant discounts of up to 20%. Payment services include Buy Now Pay Later or EMI options. Platforms also offer membership programmes, which offer benefits like additional discounts, cashback, and free delivery.

According to Jefferies, DMart Ready seems to be the 'most restrictive' among the traditional e-grocery platforms, with the highest minimum order value required and no option for free delivery. However, orders can be picked up from the company's delivery points without any charges. Dunzo seems to be the most restrictive among the quick e-commerce platforms, with no option for free delivery, the brokerage notes.

Based on the app traffic data from SensorTower, monthly active users are the highest for JioMart, followed by Zepto and Blinkit. JioMart continues to see a steady rise in active user count, while the trend is flattish for BigBasket, Dunzo, and DMart Ready. Monthly app downloads were the highest for JioMart and Blinkit at 1.5 million, while Zepto and Dunzo have seen a steady decline in downloads over the last six months.