When Discounts Meet Stockouts: How Quick Commerce Campaigns Quietly Waste Marketing Budgets
- Mar 14
- 3 min read
Quick commerce has created a new and often invisible way for brands to waste marketing spend.
It happens when a brand runs a promotion on a product that is barely available.
The campaign goes live, traffic increases, the product receives a “Lowest Price” badge, shoppers click to view it and then encounter the same message repeatedly: Out of Stock.
From the outside, the campaign looks successful. The product is visible and attracting attention. But in reality, most of that demand never converts.
A recent analysis of pet care products on Blinkit in Bengaluru illustrates how frequently this pattern occurs.
What We Observed
Last week we analysed more than 1,100 pet care SKUs on Blinkit in Bengaluru. One pattern appeared repeatedly across brands.
Promotions were being run on products that were rarely available.
One leading pet care brand offered a good example.
The product was running a 20% discount and had received the platform’s “Lowest Price” badge, which usually increases visibility and click-through rates.
However, the underlying availability told a different story.
Distribution across stores was about 44%
In those stores, the product showed 97% out-of-stock levels with less than two units available
In many stores, inventory disappeared the moment someone bought more than two units
Interestingly, the issue was not consistent across the entire product range.
A smaller pack of the same flavour remained available most of the time, while the multi-pack version was out of stock in roughly 95% of stores.
Why This Happens on Quick Commerce
Quick commerce platforms operate through dark stores, which are designed for speed rather than deep inventory.
Each store carries limited quantities of each SKU. Replenishment happens in cycles, not continuously throughout the day.
This creates a specific pattern.
When a SKU sells two or three units in the morning, the shelf may remain empty until the next replenishment cycle.
For everyday products like pet food, demand can be steady throughout the day. But if the first few orders consume the available stock, the product effectively disappears for the rest of the day.
If that product is running a promotion at the same time, the mismatch becomes even more visible.
Marketing pushes traffic to the SKU, but the store inventory cannot support the demand.
What Happens When a Shopper Sees “Out of Stock”
Consumer behaviour on quick commerce apps is very different from traditional ecommerce.
Customers are rarely browsing casually. They usually want to complete the purchase quickly.
When a shopper clicks on a product with the “Lowest Price” badge and finds it unavailable, they rarely wait or return later.
They simply switch to the next available option.
In categories like pet food, where purchases are habitual and repeat orders are common, this behaviour can have lasting consequences.
A single stockout may not just lose a sale. It may shift a customer toward a competing brand for future purchases as well.
The Marketing Impact
This is where the problem becomes expensive.
Marketing campaigns continue driving traffic to the product page, but the SKU itself cannot capture that demand.
The result is a familiar pattern:
traffic increases
conversions drop
ROAS declines
TACOS rises, even when the campaign was intended to support organic growth
From a performance marketing perspective, it appears that the campaign is underperforming.
But the real issue sits upstream in inventory planning.
Two Different Lessons for Brands
The implications differ depending on the type of brand.
For niche pet brands, low distribution often gets mistaken for low demand. In reality, the demand signal may already be present. What is missing is sufficient store coverage and inventory planning.
Instead of assuming weak performance, brands should present store-level availability data to their quick commerce partners and make the case for broader distribution.
For large brands, the problem often lies in how performance is measured.
Distribution percentages can look healthy at an aggregate level, but they may hide more specific issues.
For example:
multi-buy packs running out of stock faster than single units
basket completion failing because a key SKU is unavailable
promotions driving demand to SKUs that cannot support volume
Tracking these patterns separately often reveals where the real revenue leakage occurs.
Closing Thoughts
Quick commerce has introduced a new layer of complexity for brands.
Marketing and inventory planning can no longer operate independently. Promotions, distribution, and store-level availability must work together.
When they do, campaigns can drive real growth.
When they don’t, marketing budgets quietly disappear into stockouts.
At RevQ, we track availability gaps like these across quick commerce platforms. If you’re a consumer brand listed on any quick commerce platforms and want to understand where stockouts are affecting your sales, reach out and we’d be happy to help.