Gramiyaa Turns Quick Commerce Into 35% of Its Revenue

From D2C to the supermarket mindset

The company began in 2018 as a Chennai offline business selling unbranded oil through five to six shops, and relaunched in 2022 as a D2C brand. Its own website offered limited room to grow, and listing on Amazon in November 2022 cannibalised existing website sales at lower earnings per order. Quick commerce looked like the next route to scale.

After listing, the channel stayed loss-making for nearly six months. According to Yaseen, most brands that do reasonably well on quick commerce barely break even or lose money for six months to a year, and those without capital often pause or exit. Gramiyaa had already raised funding. The company adopted a supermarket-style approach, prioritising fewer SKUs, city-level demand and pricing discipline, with a focus on sales velocity and product availability.

Commissions came down with scale

Once monthly sales rose from ₹5 lakh to ₹10-15 lakh and repeat purchases showed customers would switch apps, the platforms began treating Gramiyaa more like a large brand. Its margins moved gradually closer to what national brands pay.

Yaseen argues quick commerce is not necessarily costlier than other channels. On a ₹400 product where the brand keeps ₹300, the remaining ₹100 covers platform margin and advertising, an amount that traditional retail might spend on distributors, retailers and a sales team. The real barrier for small brands, he says, is having enough capital to bridge the period before sales build.

The case shows how smaller D2C brands can compete with FMCG giants on quick commerce: not by getting listed, but by winning on velocity, availability and inventory allocation.