A new battleground has opened up in Indian e-commerce. After the mall and the kirana went online, India is now digitizing the bazaar.
Traditionally, e-commerce platforms focused on the affluent and aspirational middle class, mostly in tier 1 cities, because that is where users were easiest to monetize. Mass vernacular India, about 250 million households, was left out, and I think the cost structures never made sense for that audience. Horizontal marketplaces were also built to distribute pan-India brands and D2C labels, leaving the regional and unbranded segment largely unaddressed.
A cocktail of structural tailwinds is now making these buyers economical to serve, from AI-assisted discovery feeds and vernacular & voice-based search to more efficient logistics infrastructure and payments that work for them, both UPI & cash on delivery.
Value commerce platforms are formalizing the supply of regional and unbranded products at scale, in a price-conscious market that traditional models couldn’t crack. Value commerce is already 13% of online commerce and rising, against 22% for quick commerce. Most of the next online shoppers will come from tier 2 and beyond, where people value price more than convenience.
Value commerce users are discovery-driven, and these apps now look a lot like social media feeds. So AI can have an outsized impact because discovery-led platforms like these run on recommender systems. AI could change browsing, trend discovery, voice shopping, creator commerce, seller listings, and even logistics.
With these tailwinds converging, the incumbents have arrived. Flipkart's Shopsy and Amazon Bazaar are now coming for Meesho, which has proven product-market fit here, much like Amazon and Flipkart's push into quick commerce. What is interesting is that each one is chasing a different buyer. Meesho's audience skews female and tier 2-3+, Amazon Bazaar targets a broader mass market that is partly brand-conscious, and Shopsy is explicitly built for Gen Z and Bharat, with heavy gamification.
The encroachment runs both ways. Meesho Mall now carries 1,000+ national brands across BPC, fashion, grocery, and baby care. That is Amazon and Flipkart's territory, and with FMCG and grocery, it overlaps with quick commerce too.
Quick commerce turned the kirana into a fight over speed. Value commerce is turning the bazaar into a fight over price.