Superfast Grocery Delivery Is Warehouse Hungry

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Random internet searches sometimes lead to interesting blurbs. Like this one - we searched for 'super fast grocery delivery' and bam, right on top is Grofers offering delivery in 10 minutes. 

Swiggy Instamart is a company owned service that does deliver groceries within 30 minutes on most days. 

Okay, So Where's This Headed?

On closer retrospection, you will realise that faster deliveries only mean one thing - the warehouse and logistics hub belting out your grocery order is not too far away from you. 

For big cities spread out over hundreds of square kilometres, this translates into many many warehouses/logistics hubs/fulfillment centres/banana storage - whatever you call it, it's primarily good quality warehouse space. 

Urban Logistics Real Estate In Big Demand

Per Knight Frank, every £1 billion of online retail sales in the UK requires about 320,00 sq. ft. of urban logistics space, intensifying expected demand over the next five years. 

With India's love for fast-and-affordable, and our urban density, we could probably be needing more than the UK average, meaning there's an upcoming need for millions of sq. ft. of bite-sized urban warehouses. 

Is This Demand Sustainable?

Yes, feel experts. Delivering to customers within 10 or 15 minutes means service providers need to be in those locations that are close to their customer base in order to meet those time frames. 

And, there's no option for them to go outside of that location and competition in those markets is driving strong growth for commercial real estate. 

Also, naturally, this swelling demand for more warehousing space to operate dark stores** is leading to higher rents in cities. 

**The term dark store or dark supermarket or dotcom centre refers to a distribution centre that caters exclusively to online shopping.