Swiggy Instamart goes offline, opens its first-ever experiential store in Gurugram

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

The store, which is located at M3M 65th Avenue, operates as an Instamart-branded experiential store and is separate from the company’s dark store network.

Unlike Instamart’s app-based model, consumers can walk into the store, view select products and complete purchases directly at the outlet. The store carries a narrow assortment of about 100 to 200 stock-keeping units, compared with the 15,000 to 20,000 SKUs typically available at Instamart dark stores.

The format is not positioned as a conventional retail outlet. Instead, it functions as a small, experiential space designed to allow customers to see and physically inspect products before buying.

According to media reports, Swiggy is expected to open similar experiential stores around residential societies and will be operated by sellers, similar to how dark stores are run by sellers.

The focus is largely on categories where physical inspection plays a role in purchase decisions, including fresh fruits and vegetables, pulses, new product launches and offerings from direct-to-consumer brands.

The transaction structure at these experiential stores also differs from Instamart’s standard model. Payments made at the outlet are routed directly to sellers, rather than being collected by Swiggy and settled later after commission deductions. Under the regular online model, Swiggy receives the payment and transfers the proceeds to sellers after deducting its share.

Swiggy has not made an official announcement and has not indicated whether it plans to continue or scale the model beyond the current location.