A revolution is underway in retail: quick commerce or “q-comm” has become the new benchmark for convenience, offering delivery times as little as 15 minutes from mouse-click to doorstep.
Whether fulfilled from a local store, dark store, cloud store or micro fulfilment centre, venture capitalist spent vast sums in q-comm startups.
The critiques of q-commerce talk about it whether it is a sustainable business model given the level of cash burn. Just as pertinent was the question of how can omnichannel retailers could compete with q-commerce. Should they should partner with existing q-comm providers or build their own capability?
What is clear, however, is that the q-commerce revolution is having an impact on retail – and in ways that the VC billions may not have understood.
The change in the q-comm opportunity
The early players in q-comm like Delivery Hero, Deliveroo, Uber Eats and Just Eat were all restaurant delivery services. The last minute, late night, urgent appeal of q-comm was to urban dwellers with disposable income and were not discouraged by q-comm price points and delivery charges.
Today, q-comm is about a lot more than ordering pizzas to eat while watching Netflix.
Uber recently announced a major partnership with Sephora, making the beauty retailer the first prestige brand to launch on the Uber Eats platform across the US and Canada. Customers can now shop Sephora’s full assortment of beauty, skincare, fragrance, haircare and wellness products directly through the Uber Eats app.
“All your favorite [sic] brands at instore prices, delivered in as little as 25 minutes” is the pitch. Orders are fulfilled from Sephora stores offering consumers a same-day alternative at the same price as in-store.
What is interesting is that Uber has committed to instore price parity, ensuring no mark-ups for customers. Sephora’s Beauty Insider loyalty programme can also be linked to earn points on purchases made via Uber.
How will it work?
- Open the Uber Eats app and tap into the “Retail” or “Beauty” category
- Search for Sephora and browse a wide assortment of makeup, skincare, and more
- Add products to cart, choose your delivery time, and place your order
- Track your delivery in real time
This move broadens Uber’s reach into lifestyle and retail categories – as opposed to just ride share and delivery.
The future of q-comm: a super app?
The delivery of makeup, skincare, fragrance, haircare, wellness products and more – all at the touch of a button might sounds innocuous
Clare Delaney, the Data and Commerce Sales Leader commented that the Uber and Sephora announcement is a “great partnership and we expect to see more of these Quick Commerce partnerships coming – particularly for popular fashion and beauty and home improvement retailers”.
Kiri Masters of Retail Media Breakfast Club believes that “In the loftiest scenario, Uber breaks ground into super app territory like a Rappi or Grab. At the ground level though, looks a lot like Sephora’s existing partnership with Instacart”.
Is the ‘super app’ idea on the roadmap for the likes of Uber? Let’s look at ‘super apps’ around the world to find the evidence.
What is a Super App? Learning from China
Any visitor to China will immediately be struck with the ubiquity of the smartphone to the Chinese consumer. If you think Westerners are addicted to their phones, wait until you visit Shanghai or Beijing:
Chinese people live life through their mobile phone. And WeChat is the ‘super app’ that matters in China.
What is WeChat? Think of WhatsApp, mixed with Facebook, Instagram plus Twitter/X functionality. Add in the capability for businesses can create storefronts through WeChat Mini Programs and WeChat Stores enabling the one-click payments via WeChat Pay. Throw in gaming, Zoom and Facetime video functionality where you can talk directly to businesses on messaging or video and you will start to understand what is meant by the phrase that ‘WeChat is the operating system of China’.
The rise of WeChat is inextricably linked with the rise of the QR code. In China, the QR code has become the magic sauce of mobile commerce largely as a result of the success of WeChat. QR codes perform many functions within the WeChat app, including payments and links to brand accounts.
But WeChat is much more powerful than just gaming or chatting. It is also disrupting CRM and email. A WeChat official account also allows a business to perform outbound marketing to its followers with promotional messages via text, audio or video.
Other Super Apps
Rappi – Latin America – Rappi is a Latin American super app that that delivers meals, groceries, pharmacy essentials, pet supplies, and gifts. Rappi offers:
- Meals and groceries: Order food from restaurants or supermarkets for rapid delivery.
- Pharmacy and essentials: Access medicine, personal care, and household items.
- Pet supplies and gifts: Shop across categories beyond food and essentials.
- Turbo delivery: Select products delivered in under 10 minutes.
- Financial services: Use RappiPay for digital wallets, transfers, and cash delivery.
- Travel and extras: Book flights, hotels, and other services within the app.
Amazon has recently taken a minority stake in Rappi.
Mercado Libre – Latin America – Mercado Libre also operates across Latin America. It offers lots of different super-app style propositions:
- eCommerce: an Amazon style eCommerce MarketPlace,
- Payments: Mercado Pago – a payment platform for online sales,
- Mercado Publicado – a retail media advertising business
- Mercado Crédito – a credit line for business
- Logistics: a comprehensive fulfilment network including distribution centres, air cargo, and a last-mile delivery infrastructure across Latin America to manage e-commerce shipping
Noon – Noon is the leading e-commerce platform and digital marketplace in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt. It offers shopping, delivery, fashion, food, and payments across the Middle East.
- noon Grocery: Order fresh produce, pantry staples, and household items at competitive UAE prices.
- NowNow: On-demand service connecting customers to nearby stores and services, with delivery in minutes.
- noon pay: Secure and efficient digital wallet to pay for purchases, transfer money, and earn rewards.
- SIVVI: Online fast-fashion destination with wide delivery coverage across the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
- noon Food: Restaurant-first platform within the noon app, tailored for the Middle East’s F&B sector.
- Namshi: Leading e-commerce site for fashion and lifestyle across the region.
- Noon Minutes: Ultra-fast delivery for essentials—groceries, medicine, and personal care—arriving within minutes.
Grab App – South East Asia – The Grab app operates in several Southeast Asian countries, including Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Myanmar.
- Ride-hailing: Book taxis, private cars, or motorbikes for fast and flexible city travel.
- Food delivery (GrabFood): Browse restaurants, order meals, and track delivery in real time.
- Grocery delivery (GrabMart): Shop from supermarkets and convenience stores with quick home delivery.
- Package delivery (GrabExpress): Send parcels, documents, or small items reliably within the city.
- Financial services (GrabPay): Make secure cashless payments, transfer money, and access extras like insurance and credit.
Super Apps from a Retail Media Perspective
Retail media is a central pillar in the growth strategy of super apps. Every app screen is a ‘digital shelf’ where brands can place ads, promos, or featured products just as brands pay for space in brick-and-mortar stores.
Super apps own the user’s attention and their transactions, they hold rich first‐party data which powers all the familiar bywords of retail media: precision targeting, measurement, and real-time offers.
Rather than forcing brands to choose between building awareness or driving sales, retail media inside super apps enables both: brand exposure and performance marketing happen together in the same session.
In many ways, super apps have to offer retail media. Margins on media are higher help offset the costs of fast fulfilment and create a revenue stream that is scalable as the q-comm business scales.
However, I think there is an even bigger opportunity here: shoppers always want more. Everyone wants everything better, faster and cheaper. They want accessibility of everything, everywhere, every time and in every form – and are willing to pay a premium for this.
Yes, you might not need lipstick delivered in 30 minutes like Sephora and Uber are offering. But we might be happy if it was available!
Who does not want on-demand delivery of makeup, skincare, fragrance, haircare, wellness products, anything – all at the touch of a button?
Well, I don’t all the time. But I can see how if I was stuck, or if I liked something and wanted it for that evening, well, why not?
Speed becomes fundamental to a competitive advantage. And why shouldn’t q-comm leverage what they do to deliver B2B opportunities for their suppliers? However, speed is NOT what q-comm businesses are selling.
Q-Comm as a driver of a Super App
If the usage of WeChat taught us anything, it’s that speed alone doesn’t create a super app. The Uber, Rappi and Noon pitch of ‘speed’ is actually less important than that combining ecommerce, payments, messaging, loyalty and advertising into a single consumer app.
What began as a 15-minute fast food delivery is changing into a logistics opportunity, which in turn means that these apps can layer other propositions over them. WeChat combined the customer journey into a single, continuous flow: you discover a product, pay instantly, collect loyalty points, and even message the brand, all without leaving the app.
Uber’s tie-up with Sephora hints at this shift: q-commerce is delivering lipstick fast AND it’s stitching together retail, loyalty, payments, and media into one journey.
The race to be the ‘WeChat of the West’
The easiest prediction ever was that ‘quick delivery is not just going to be for pizzas’. As Jeff Bezos says: “customers are always beautifully, wonderfully dissatisfied, even when they report being happy and business is great”.
Instead of thinking of q-comm as a ‘speed’ story – as in how fast a scooter can bring groceries to a shopper who is swiping on their couch – think about whether q-commerce platforms can turn a delivery window into a much wider opportunity – a sort of operating system where shopping, advertising, payments, loyalty and fulfilment all combine. the entire retail impulse from discovery to purchase to re-engagement.
My prediction: the “q” in q-commerce won’t really exist anymore. Consumers won’t just be using these apps to buy a product in minutes — they’ll discover it through retail media, pay via an in-app wallet, earn loyalty rewards, and re-engage through personalised offers, all without leaving the platform.
Perhaps the real ‘race’ here is to become the ‘WeChat of the West’ — the operating system for daily living.
Speed and logistics will be assumed; the differentiator will be how effectively a platform connects commerce, payments, loyalty, and media into a WeChat-style.
