FirstCry plans to route 10 per cent of its online orders through its rapid-delivery service FC Qwik after multichannel revenue in India rose 17.7 per cent in the first quarter.
The retailer expanded the service from five cities in March to 12 cities by June, doubling quarterly quick-delivery shipments to 125,000 orders.
Orders on FC Qwik arrive within two to three hours. Founder and chief executive Supam Maheshwari said the company intends to cut transit times further as the network expands into more urban markets. The service handles urgent replenishment goods like baby formula and diapers, but also ships bulky items including strollers, car seats and ethnic wear.
Expanding RocketBees across Indian cities
Deliveries rely on RocketBees, FirstCry’s internal logistics operation that grew from 62 to 72 cities over the past 15 months. The in-house network now handles more than half of the company’s online parcel volume, delivering a 20 per cent performance improvement over third-party couriers.
The company built RocketBees on an asset-light model using leased vehicles for long-haul routes and local contractors for final deliveries. Maheshwari said managing parcel weights ranging from 10-gram diaper pins to 40-kilogram toy cars forced the retailer to build its own technology after struggling with third-party logistics providers.
Specialist vertical retailers across Asia are increasingly building dedicated logistics instead of relying on horizontal quick-commerce apps or legacy parcel carriers. By fulfilling orders directly from local hubs and brick-and-mortar shops, FirstCry protects its product margins while defending against fast-delivery aggregators that stock narrower inventories.
Balancing costs and physical store expansion
Building the internal courier network and rapid-dispatch service added roughly 60 basis points to operational costs. Maheshwari expects unit costs to normalize once RocketBees captures between 70 per cent and 75 per cent of order volumes within each target city.
Physical outlets remain central to the fulfillment model. Online orders accounted for 78 per cent of FirstCry’s gross business value in India during fiscal 2026, while physical retail generated 22 per cent. In the top 50 cities, shoppers using both store and digital channels drove 36 per cent of gross sales.
Store-level gross merchandise value climbed 15 per cent year-on-year, and FirstCry is preparing to open between 90 and 100 physical stores during fiscal 2027.
