.png){kind=logo}
Rising customer acquisition costs and underperforming traditional channels have prompted marketers to develop new strategies to drive business growth. Brands demand more than just website visits because they expect their customers to demonstrate buying intent and generate measurable revenue.
The current trend has created greater demand for non-endemic advertising and commerce media because these platforms deliver ads during actual buying moments instead of displaying them to viewers who do not engage.
In a recent episode of the Analytics Insight Podcast, host Priya Dialani spoke with Umair Mohammed, Founder and CEO of Nitro Commerce, about how quick commerce is redefining brand performance and how retailers can better monetize their digital real estate.
Umair built Nitro Commerce on a long-observed shift in consumer behavior. “It’s not a sudden shift, honestly. It’s been a gradual shift over the last decade of how customers have consumed media, how customers have discovered your product,” he explains.
He clarifies that digital transformation isn’t just about online transactions. “I do not mean online in the sense of only transaction… I mean online in the sense of the smartphone penetration of how they discover your brand.”
As consumer journeys moved online, advertising models had to evolve. Non-endemic placements became a natural extension of commerce media, helping merchants unlock incremental revenue from existing traffic at peak attention moments.
Initially, even Umair was skeptical. “When quick commerce came in, I think like everybody else, we also thought that quick commerce is a fad.”
However, behavior quickly proved otherwise. “We call them habit-forming software,” he says, comparing their impact to ride-hailing platforms that permanently changed user expectations. Quick commerce didn’t just accelerate delivery timelines; it reshaped buying psychology.
He recalls a personal turning point: ordering batteries before a football match. The eight-minute delivery created what he describes as a “wow moment,” permanently shifting his expectations around convenience and immediacy.
Quick commerce thrives on depth and frequency. Umair notes that growth in India has come from users increasing their monthly orders significantly, alongside new digital adopters entering the ecosystem. These high-frequency buyers represent pure intent, consumers who want immediate fulfillment without planning store visits.
“I think all e-commerce will become quick commerce,” Umair predicts. Not necessarily eight-minute delivery, but faster, localized fulfillment powered by dark stores and high-velocity inventory.
For brands and retailers, this creates a powerful monetization opportunity. By combining commerce media with quick commerce infrastructure, platforms can capture intent at the moment of decision, transforming performance marketing into transaction-driven growth.
