E-commerce delivery in South Asia has evolved from 3-day promises to next-day, then specific time windows like before 10 am, and now 15-minute quick-commerce. Success means hitting the exact window customers expect, not just going fast. OTD shapes entire business models.
See, Max, if you go around 5 to 10 years back, right, e-commerce have come to existence with the on-time delivery promise only. Okay. But the definition of OTD has been changed year on year. And with OTD only, lot of businesses have evolved. Quick commerce is the subset of e-commerce which has evolved with the time only, OTD only. Okay. Now what is time for a customer? When e-commerce came, then we promise we will deliver within 3 days. So people, customer happiness index was very high. The CSAT metric which we used to measure, that was great. After 3 years when we promised next day delivery, then or within 3 days delivery, but specifically in some time windows, which is called a slotted delivery, which groceries used to do it. That time the customer expectation has increased. Now they want not next day or within 3 days, but I actually need the timeframe through which you will deliver. So that was the second phase of e-commerce delivery. Third phase of e-commerce delivery, which came from e-commerce only, when we start saying that, okay, before 10 o'clock I will deliver. So that is a something, a promise delivery, customer promise delivery came into the picture. And through which e-commerce has grown more into metros, basically not 2-tier, 3-tier city, but the timing of speed has increased in the cities which was high density with the urban population. Last phase which came on after 3 hours when we broken up into minutes and we told no within 15 minutes I will deliver and that's called the OTD for quick commerce. So if you see the experience, it is not always fast delivery is experience. I have seen in my tenure there are people who want after 5th day of the dispatch. So there are customer dates, timing which is very critical for any businesses to grow now. And it, it might be a fast delivery or it might be most precise delivery where they want the delivery extremely within that window. So that's how the success will come in and that's how the expectation of the customers are changing. So OTT is not a small term, it is the phases of business. It is defining the type of businesses we are doing, at least in South Asia.
