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Inside quick commerce brand wars: Smear tactics, platform fights and founder feuds
A recent public post by Zepto co-founder Aadit Palicha that, without naming names, rebutted claims circulating on social media about price manipulation and brand favoritism. It was seen as a direct response to rival whisper campaigns.
In a space where price points are nearly identical and fulfillment speeds barely vary, brand recall especially driven by founder presence becomes a weapon.
In the hypercharged quick commerce (q-comm) sector, grocery delivery isn’t the only thing arriving in under 10 minutes. Lately, so are accusations, shade-laced social media posts, and strategic callouts, often straight from the founders’ personal handles.
The spark? A recent public post by Zepto co-founder Aadit Palicha that, without naming names, rebutted claims circulating on social media about price manipulation and brand favoritism. It was seen as a direct response to rival whisper campaigns. In doing so, Palicha not only aired internal platform metrics but reignited a pattern of founder-led reputation management that’s fast becoming the norm in India’s consumer-tech battleground.
But this is not just about Zepto. It’s about the moment quick commerce finds itself in: commoditized, low-margin, and too crowded to grow peacefully. And like the Cola Wars of the past, today’s q-comm brand battles are heating up—only now they’re messier, faster, and playing out in public.
Visibility > Value?
Rahul Mathur, founder-turned-VC, argues that what’s playing out isn’t just competition, it’s a visibility war. “The Zepto, Blinkit, InstaMart minutes, and any future quick commerce player are providing a commodity service,” he explains. “If you take Bezos’s mental model of price, convenience and selection, there’s little differentiation unless you get into niche, high-margin categories. But those don’t drive daily transactions. So, if I keep hearing about the Zepto founder, I might just open the Zepto app.”
In a space where price points are nearly identical and fulfillment speeds barely vary, brand recall especially driven by founder presence becomes a weapon.
Ashish Kaul, a professor of marketing, sees a more systemic issue. “We’re seeing a pattern of reckless behavior, often fueled by a culture that glorifies aggression. Start-ups thrive on hyper-competition, but the focus has shifted from consumer benefit to investor attention. That’s when it turns bitter.”
He points out that in this case, there was a clear aggressor and a respondent. Zepto, he believes, walked a tightrope well: “Staying silent could’ve distorted facts. But responding too harshly would’ve escalated things. Their statement was factual, respectful and allowed investors to verify claims themselves.”
A Collapse of Decorum?
Ankur Bisen, Senior Partner and Head - Consumer, Food & Retail, Technopak Advisors, contextualizes the spat within a longer arc. “If you rewind to the 80s and 90s, when India’s FMCG or auto sectors were growing, there was no public bickering. There was a decorum. What we’re seeing today is a collapse of that value system in the Indian startup ecosystem.”
He calls it particularly damaging given the aspirational status of startup founders among India’s youth. “When founders behave recklessly in public, it sets a poor benchmark. This isn’t an isolated case, it’s a continuation of the toxic dynamics we saw in edtech, Paytm, and BharatPe.”
Bisen also challenges the underlying promise of quick commerce itself. “It’s an oversold idea. Most demand comes from four to five city clusters. It doesn’t scale well into Tier 2 or rural India due to high fulfillment costs. If this market were truly growing robustly, everyone would be doing well. The fact that we’re seeing mudslinging shows players are now eating into each other’s limited market share.”
The Zepto Factor
Satish Meena, founder at Datum Intelligence echoes that analysis. “Customer acquisition has slowed. After the initial high-growth phase, it’s now about poaching from each other. Zepto is particularly in the spotlight, they’re newer and still building operations, so they’re easier to criticize.”
He also points out that Palicha’s communication style isn’t new. “Some founders follow the Elon Musk model, direct, personal, public. Others, like Flipkart’s Kalyan Krishnamurthy, keep quiet and let the company speak. Aadit belongs to the first camp, and I expect he’ll continue.”
But unlike traditional brand wars, q-commerce platforms are intermediaries, not product owners. That complicates things. “Platforms are judged on scalability, fairness, and how they treat brands,” Meena says. “This makes the game far messier. Blinkit, Zepto, BigBasket, Amazon, Flipkart, and JioMart are all in or circling. It’s going to get bloodier.”
What Happens Next
As customer growth plateaus and margins remain thin, q-commerce platforms will keep trying to differentiate in the most aggressive ways possible, whether that’s app nudges, exclusivity deals or carefully timed founder statements. But the question remains: in a business built on trust and convenience, can smear tactics ever deliver lasting brand value?
Or are we watching the startup equivalent of a food fight—messy, viral, and a little juvenile?
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