I was talking to someone about quick commerce in Indonesia. Why the country doesn’t have a Blinkit or Zepto yet.

Indonesia is a collection of islands, but the majority live in Java, the main island, and a region similar to NCR, Jabo, which accounts for 40/50% of on-demand orders.

The person made a very interesting point: if a single company made it big there and was the combination of Zepto + Blinkit + Instamart for Jabo, and their business was comparable to NCR, then they would be a unicorn.

Now you can ask a lot of questions:

  • What is the macro situation of that country?
  • Is the economy growing?
  • Will fulfilment costs be as low as India where we have “cheaper” labour?
  • Will logistics be 1PL (dark store) or 3PL?
  • Is the middle class big enough?
  • Will people pay a premium for convenience? Speed?
  • What is the online shopping behaviour like?

I could go on and on.

But the eigenquestion is: what is the demand density like?

Imagine you could divide Jabo (the serviceable area) into smaller regions (polygons) and polygons made up of (s2ids), then are there enough polygons with enough demand density that you can create a quick commerce operation to serve that demand? Take NCR. There are all these DLF phases with sectors and their high-rises. Probably thousands of flats in a small area (polygon). Mostly people who work in technology live there. You can imagine a darkstores optimally positioned to serve all these polygons.

If the demand density isn’t high enough, it doesn’t matter if the supply-side economy works or not, you won’t be able to run a quick commerce business.

As quick commerce expands to smaller cities, the same assessment has to be made.

I teach everyone who works with me how to ask the right questions. If you are a founder or a PM, you need to build this muscle of asking your own eigenquestions.