BENGALURU: India’s logistics firms are expanding their data and intelligence offerings as brands selling on quick commerce platforms demand granular insights to manage inventory and reduce costs.
As quick commerce scales, last-mile delivery providers such as Shiprocket, Delhivery, DTDC, and Emiza are rolling out new tools, dashboards and delivery infrastructure for retailers. The move shows how logistics firms are evolving beyond package movement into data-driven partners focused on profitability, customer experience, and inventory efficiency, industry executives said.
IPO-bound Shiprocket recently launched an appointment-based delivery service that lets brands schedule bulk dispatches to dark stores and marketplace warehouses via fixed delivery windows. The service achieved 98% on-time delivery adherence since its rollout last year, and sellers reported logistics cost reductions of up to 27%, Gautam Kapoor, COO of theGurugram-based logistics firm told Mint.
Last-mile delivery provider Emiza, which currently serves over 150 brands, said it is working to extend its existing data capabilities directly into quick commerce workflows, covering everything from live inventory tracking to courier allocation and return risk monitoring, according to Emiza’s co-founder and executive director Jitendra Kumar.
DTDC Express said the most sought-after metrics from brands today include in-stock percentages, days of inventory, delivery success rates and logistics cost as a share of revenue. “Brands are increasingly using logistics data to drive decision-making rather than simply monitor operations,” said chief executive officer Abhishek Chakraborty.
Quick commerce now accounts for a fast-growing share of online retail in India, touching a gross merchandise value (GMV) of $10-11 billion in 2025, Bain & Co estimated. Brands are under pressure to keep pace with consumer expectations around speed and availability, without letting fulfilment costs spiral.
For logistics firms, too, quick commerce has emerged as a significant growth vertical, making it important for them to deepen their capabilities and lock in brand relationships early, according to Satish Meena, analyst at market research firm Datum Intelligence.
While logistics companies do not disclose revenue from quick-commerce operations separately, industry estimates suggest the segment contributes less than 10% of revenue for most players on average. The share, however, is growing rapidly, making quick commerce an increasingly important business line for logistics providers.
Building the intelligence layer
The data brands are seeking has grown far more specific in recent times — pin-code-level demand patterns, return-to-origin risk, and courier effectiveness by geography are now standard asks.
“Earlier, brands weren’t actively asking for deep analytical data; we were the ones quietly identifying return patterns behind the scenes just to help them keep things moving,” Emiza’s Jitendra Kumar said. “Today, brands have completely shifted gears and have started using this very data to actively build their own business strategies.”
Data-driven interventions across Emiza's network have helped brands cut logistics costs by up to 20% in 2025, reduce return-to-origin rates by as much as 30%, and recover 50-60% of at-risk shipments through proactive exception management, according to Kumar.
Shiprocket’s new appointment-based delivery service addresses a significant pain point — the unpredictability of bulk dispatches into dark stores and marketplace warehouses. By letting brands book fixed delivery windows and lock in schedules in advance, the service shifts bulk logistics from a reactive process to a planned one.
“Transit times to key destination hubs have come down by 24-48 hours on average, and warehouse rejection rates have dropped by up to 10% for participating sellers,” Shiprocket’s Kapoor noted.
DTDC Express is using proprietary technology stack, integrating with brands’ existing commerce and warehouse systems to surface insights on demand patterns, fulfilment efficiency and stock movement in real time.
Adoption is currently strongest in beauty and personal care, fashion, FMCG, health, and consumer electronics, according to Datum’s Meena, as categories with high order volumes, omnichannel complexity, and thin margins often prioritize efficiency.
“When you’re operating across eight to ten dark stores in three cities, you can’t make inventory decisions on gut feel. If I don’t know which SKUs are moving fastest in which micro-market, I’m either overstocking and going out of stock. Every bit of intelligence can help us get ahead of that,” said the founder of a Bengaluru-based snacking brand, asking not to be named.
Amazon, Blinkit and Zepto do share some data, but it’s aggregated, and it’s on their terms. "I can’t slice it by time of day or correlate it with my own dispatch data. For that level of granularity, we have to rely on what our third parties are sharing,” said the founder quoted above.
The build-out is still in early stages, and gaps remain, particularly around dark store inventory planning, where even logistics firms acknowledge that brands are still figuring out how to position stock efficiently across multiple locations.
“Quick commerce is no longer a parallel channel. It’s becoming central to how D2C brands grow and logistics firms have been quick to catch that,” Datum’s Meena added.
