Zepto Scales Automation Pan-India, Claims ‘Hundreds of Crores’ in Savings — What It Means For Quick Commerce

Quick commerce unicorn Zepto's co-founder Aadit Palicha has announced on Wednesday that the company has scaled its backend automation across India, which has generated significant operational cost savings.

Palicha revealed that automated assets across Zepto's factories now process at least 2.5 million FMCG units daily across its supply chain - something he described as exciting for the company.

Aadit Palicha's update essentially means that Zepto is moving away from a traditional picking and packing system to an in-house automated system, guided by Zepto's own software.

Palicha claims that this shift towards automation has resulted in nearly 45% improvement in outbound manpower productivity.

This effectively means that over time, Zepto could become less reliant on human decision-making for sorting and more dependent on proprietary algorithm, dictated by the software.

Palicha claimed that Zepto's technical team has also been able to develop the software in-house, without having to outsource the service to a third party.

This adds to the operational cost savings effort from the quick-commerce player, which, till date, remains the only unlisted player among the big three quick-commerce apps.

Aadit Palicha advertising Zepto's advancements when it comes to factory automation is important for the company as it would ultimately bring down the cost of their operations.

This would result in not only better efficiency but also better profitability.

The quick-commerce space, after all, is notorious for high cash burn, with employees playing a big role to play in expenses.

Zepto's efforts, to that end, may help the company not only reduce their cost but also improve scalability, as it relies more on machines and less on humans.

At the end of the day, these efforts could go a long way in helping a company that is poised to come out with its initial public offering sometime in 2026.