Swiggy’s fast commerce arm Instamart, which competes with Zepto and Blinkit, has opened its first-ever bodily experiential retailer as a pilot in Gurugram.

The shop, which is situated at M3M sixty fifth Avenue, operates as an Instamart-branded experiential retailer and is separate from the corporate’s darkish retailer community.

Not like Instamart’s app-based mannequin, customers can stroll into the shop, view choose merchandise and full purchases instantly on the outlet. The shop carries a slim assortment of about 100 to 200 stock-keeping items, in contrast with the 15,000 to twenty,000 SKUs sometimes accessible at Instamart darkish shops.

The format just isn’t positioned as a traditional retail outlet. As an alternative, it capabilities as a small, experiential house designed to permit clients to see and bodily examine merchandise earlier than shopping for.

In keeping with media studies, Swiggy is anticipated to open comparable experiential shops round residential societies and will likely be operated by sellers, just like how darkish shops are run by sellers.

The main focus is essentially on classes the place bodily inspection performs a job in buy selections, together with recent fruit and veggies, pulses, new product launches and choices from direct-to-consumer manufacturers.

The transaction construction at these experiential shops additionally differs from Instamart’s normal mannequin. Funds made on the outlet are routed on to sellers, quite than being collected by Swiggy and settled later after fee deductions. Below the common on-line mannequin, Swiggy receives the cost and transfers the proceeds to sellers after deducting its share.

Swiggy has not made an official announcement and has not indicated whether or not it plans to proceed or scale the mannequin past the present location.