Mumbai: DTDC Express is leaning into rapid commerce and expects its e-commerce businesses together to make up roughly half of total revenue over the next 2–3 years, according to CEO Abhishek Chakraborty.
The push follows the recent launch of Raftaar, an emerging vertical offering 4–6 hour deliveries through hyperlocal dark stores. As opposed to 10-minute quick commerce, Raftaar is geared toward categories such as electronics, fashion, beauty, and wellness products—where speed is crucial but unit economics should be viable.
To aid the model, DTDC will add 125 dark stores over the next three quarters. It already has 25 stores in seven cities and has scheduled ₹100 crore in capex in the current fiscal year, while another ₹100 crore is planned for FY25, as per ET Prime.
Most of this investment will be in digital capabilities. Over 55% of DTDC’s capex will be for technology like AI, generative AI, and machine learning. Within the next two to three years, the company plans to invest 20–25% of total investment consistently in innovation and automation along business lines.
Today, DTDC’s business mix consists of approximately 16% domestic e-commerce, 21% international (including rapid commerce), and 63% conventional parcel and document services. The company anticipates domestic and international e-commerce increasing to 23–24% each, bringing e-commerce’s total share to approximately 50%.
The initiative is part of DTDC’s Vision 2030 expansion strategy. A whitepaper authored by the firm in association with BCG states that India’s e-commerce GMV has surpassed $80 billion, growing 20% every year. Same-day delivery is expected to be a $15 billion business by 2030, whereas rapid commerce is growing over 45% per annum and is already present in 40+ cities.
Chakraborty said the goal is to give brands speed without heavy infrastructure costs, helping them scale beyond metros into Tier-2 and Tier-3 markets. DTDC believes its shared dark-store model, combined with its existing delivery network, offers an efficient, scalable solution for this demand shift.
