Daybreak - The humble category manager is now a quick-commerce overlord

Episode Date: June 26, 2025

Category managers have shifted from routine e-commerce roles to powerful decision-makers in quick commerce. They now manage the limited shelf space in dark stores and decide which products get visibility on platforms like Instamart, Zepto, and Blinkit. Naturally, brands are aggressively courting them, with over 30,000 requests every month for just 150 slots. From hosting parties to taking them out for drinks, brands are pulling out all the stops. Meanwhile, category managers are urging brands to invest more in ads and marketing to stay competitive.Tune in.*This episode was first published on Dec 19, 2024Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.Listen to the latest episode of Two by Two here

Hi, this is Rohan Dharma Kumar. If you've heard any of the Ken's podcast, you've probably heard me, my interruptions, my analogies, and my contrarian takes on most topics. And you might rightly be wondering why am I interrupting this episode too? It's for a special announcement. For the last few months, I and Sita Raman Ganeshan, my colleague and the Ken's deputy editor, have been working on an ambitious new podcast. It's called Intermission.

We want to tell the Sietamination. secret-source stories of India's greatest companies. Stories of how they were born, how they fought to survive, how they build their organizations and culture, how they manage to innovate and thrive over decades, and most importantly, how they're poised today. To do that, Sita and I have been reading books, poring over reports, going through financial statements, digging up archives, and talking to dozens of people. And if that wasn't enough, we also decided to throw in video into the mix. Yes, you heard that right. Intermission has also had to find its footing in the world of

multi-camera shoots in professional studios, laborious editing and extensive post-production. Sita and I are still reeling from the intensity of our first studio recording. Intermission launches on March 23rd. To get an alert as soon as we release our first episode, please follow Intermission on Spotify and Apple podcast or subscribe to the Ken's YouTube channel. You can find all of the links at the ken.com slash I am. With that, back to your episode. If you're a regular listener of Daybreak, you will know that enough has been said about the quick commerce boom on this podcast.

We've spoken extensively about how Blinkets, Zepto and Swiggy Instamart have managed to turn the business of instant delivery into a $6 billion industry. We have discussed all the audacious bets that these platforms have taken. Why some of them worked, why others failed. We've spoken about the people leading these businesses and they're often brilliant but sometimes questionable business decisions. What we haven't spoken about though are the gatekeepers of quick commerce. The people who decide which products will see the light of day on all these platforms

and which will not. In many ways, these are people deciding the varieties of breads. that you choose from, or what new brand of sunscreen you may want to try out, or which new cool pair of headphones you would want to purchase on your QuickCommerce platform of choice. In this space, they wield tremendous power. I am speaking, of course, about category managers. And I know that's a rather unresuming title for a set of people who have in so many ways become the overlords of the quick commerce industry. So this role of a category manager, it came into existence majorly with e-commerce. Just like earlier how e-commerce platforms

were growing the business and expanding into different categories, they needed these managers to take care of things, ensure like the pricing and the execution of the products in these categories were up to the mark. But quick commerce took things to a whole new level. Today, if you see the responsibilities of a category manager, they are not just restricted. to say pricing and like you know ensuring that the product is available it also includes a task like what kind of a brand or what kind of a product is fit for with geography so accordingly on a day-to-day basis they have to go through data and ensure like you know the product which works best for a particular area or particular region is stocked at all times of the day and in that aspect

their responsibilities have gone up significantly. And across categories, right, pushing, say, the volumes, ensuring that a product is suited for 10-minute delivery. So today it's a very quick and a very dynamic role compared to what it was in e-commerce. That was the Ken reporter Noha Burbray. She says that in the process, brands are often finding themselves bending over backwards to please these category managers, just so that they amplify their presence on quick commerce platforms. They are going to unimaginable lengths, from amping up their social media strategies to grab these managers' attention,

to taking them out for drinks every month. You see, most companies, particularly new D2C brands, have no choice. Making their products available on quick commerce platforms is the only logical way for them to grow. The founder of one such company told the Ken that it was a vicious cycle, that they were often sucked into. So category managers by extension play a very important role in their growth stories. But being a category manager is no easy task.

You're not just picking from many, many brands old and new. You are also deciding what today's customer wants. And that is a whole different ballgame. Welcome to Daybreak, a business podcast from the Ken. I'm your host, Nick Dha Sharma. and I don't chase the new cycle. Instead, every day of the week, my colleague Rahal Philipose and I will come to you with one business story that is worth understanding and worth your time.

Consider this. Today, category managers at Swiggy Instamart and Blinket respectively handle about 20 to 25,000 SKUs or stockkeeping units collectively. That is more than triple the SKUs that they handle at the beginning of the year. And that is the kind of demand that exists. today and naturally that number is only expected to grow, which is why brands are willing to pay huge sums of money to these platforms to get featured. In fact, the demand is so high that even brands that are willing to spend that kind of money are now struggling to get in-person

meetings with a few of these platforms category managers. Once they do, generally category managers then evaluate different brands and identify the gaps in their segments to ensure that their decisions are backed by data and business needs rather than just personal relationships. They also push brands to up their marketing and ad spend when required. For example, a founder that the Ken spoke to said that one category manager recently asked the owner of a chocolate brand to up their spending on advertisements. They said that their current spending was not even one-tenth of what Cadbury was spending. More ad spend essentially means that these products will figure more prominently

on the platform. Now, based on this, you would naturally assume that VC-funded brands would have an edge because they have more money to spend on marketing. But according to Depender Binner, the VP of category management at Zepto, a brand's marketing spend is not make or break. It is the brand's products and customer appeal that these category managers care about. Binner told us how the company onboarded beyond snack, a chips brand even before it, got VC funding in 2023. And currently, its products are one of the top sellers across multiple platforms. Pretty much any brand, old or new, would want to hit a home run like that.

Which is why multiple companies that we spoke to said that it has become imperative to keep category managers happy and to stay in their good books. Brands do that in different ways. By inviting them for office parties or even sending them gifts for their birthdays or Diwali. All of these formal and informal engagements have become a crucial part of business development for many of these companies which are whying for a space on the quick commerce shelf. But at least four category managers that the Gens spoke to refuted these claims. They said that their platforms have strict policies discouraging them from meeting brands in such informal

settings. But either way, the struggle is real for these brands, both big and small. And by big, I mean really big. Narayanan Hariharan, an angel investor in the D2C space, said that companies with turnovers and crores are also caught up in the quick commerce rigmarole. For the category manager, though, it is about striking a delicate balance between the many choices that are available today. More on that in the next segment. A big part of a category manager's job is perfecting the product mix available on a platform. That means nailing the balance between the incumbents, the big legacy brands and the new age D2C brands. It can't just be one or the other. Because in today's day and age, options are everything to a customer. Offering a whole range

of products under every single category is essential for growth. That is why, for category managers, their days begin and end with keeping a close tab on offerings. They check the assortment of products, their procurement, replenish stock, look at the app's front end where customers interact and even look at how products are priced in their respective categories. It is a pretty demanding job. You see, unlike with e-commerce, quick commerce category managers take care of both the buy side and also the sell side. So they take care of getting various brands on the platform and also look at things like pricing, inventory and margins.

One manager at Zepto said that typically a quick commerce category manager has to handle at least four to five calls with sellers, distributors or brands every single day. And that is how they keep up with the trends in their respective categories. Multiple category managers that we spoke to said that the work is nonstop and round the clock. which is why a lot of cold calls and emails to these managers tend to go unanswered. The Zepto manager that the Ken spoke to said that, yes, sure, there is a lot of quote-unquote power that comes with the role since they control which brands make it to the platform and which don't, but all that power has left them with almost no time to maintain their relationship with brands

in a lot of cases. We spoke to a manager at a small D2C wellness brand. It has been live on Blinkets since September this year and has been trying to get featured on Zepto and Instamort. The brand manager is in a WhatsApp group with two Blinket managers, but the platform still has not fixed a time to meet. The brand manager at the D2C brand said that they have had far more luck with category managers at e-commerce platforms. They tend to hear back from them within one day and if busy, they generally let the brand manager know and reach out as quickly as possible. But like I said before, category managers have their hands full. And some categories are even more difficult to manage than the others.

For example, while a manager working with categories like bread and personal care looks at about 15 to 25 brands, in apparel and electronics, the number quadruples. Which is why even within the same kind of categories, there are multiple people. For example, some of them will handle chocolate or soft drinks entirely, and some others will cater to subsections like oil, fruits and vegetables, meat, eggs and bread separately. The good thing for them, of course, is that all this responsibility and power also comes with a pretty hefty paycheck.

Today, they are paid anywhere between 25 to 45 lakh rupees annually at the entry level, and that is about 10 to 15% more than an average e-commerce category manager's salary. But with that hefty paycheck comes considering. more pressure. A project that would once take a couple of months to execute, a category manager now has to pull off within five days. Clearly, being the overload of quick commerce is no easy task. But these category managers still have brands dancing to their tunes.

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of the Ken, India's first subscriber-focused business news platform. What you're listening to is just a small sample of our subscriber-only online. A full subscription unlocks daily long-form feature stories, newsletters and podcast extras. To subscribe, head to the ken.com and click on the red subscribe button on top of the Ken website. Today's episode was hosted by Snigda Sharma and edited by Rajiv Siyah.