Omnichannel kidswear retailer FirstCry is piloting its quick commerce service, ‘Qwik’, across three cities in India. The service will enable the company to deliver diapers and other baby care products within three hours, its co-founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Supam Maheshwari, said during the Q3 FY26 earnings call.
FirstCry said it is initially piloting the service in Pune, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad. Customers in select pin codes across these three cities will be able to order a range of items, including diapers, baby gear, nursery products, fashion, toys, and more, according to the management.
“We are leveraging our COCO stores in these three cities as a pilot, in a few pin codes, to begin with and a few of our stockist network and also we’ll be extending it to the dark stores,” Maheshwari said.
1. FirstCry’s Quick Commerce Playbook
FirstCry’s Qwik is powered by the company’s in-house logistics arm, RocketBees. During the earnings call, Maheshwari said that RocketBees expanded to 22 cities in Q3 FY26, up from 13 cities previously. On the back of increased volumes and scale, the company witnessed a 20% improvement in delivery turnaround time (TAT).
According to the management, RocketBees serves as the backbone of the company’s quick commerce service. FirstCry had heavily relied on third-party logistics providers such as Xpressbees for the delivery of its baby and mother care products from its online platform to customers. However, over the last few quarters, customers reported issues with certain logistics partners. This prompted the company to launch its own logistics service.
RocketBees allows FirstCry to directly distribute its products rather than relying on third parties for shipments. The management believes that, over time, this will also help reduce delivery time.
“We will be able to leverage our 1,200 stores over a period of time once we streamline the entire tech product as well as the supply chain, ops for the entire FC Qwik, to be able to deliver all products. Currently, we are promising three hours, as a promised delivery. We intend to reduce promised delivery over a period of time,” Maheshwari said.
2. What is Behind This Shift?
FirstCry’s quick commerce initiative, Qwik, and its in-house logistics service, RocketBees, are direct outcomes of changing consumer behaviour and expectations, according to the management.
“Young parents who cannot wait beyond the promise that you are promising. And on top of it, I would say, the feature of quick commerce and general commerce being so pervasive in today’s world and today’s Gen Z audience and so on, so forth, it is very important from our future perspective as well, to build our supply chain, which you can tailor to your requirements rather than being dependent on the third party,” Maheshwari said during the post-earnings call.
The management also highlighted that the India multichannel business,…
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