Blinkit loses Rs 308 crore a quarter to spoilage and theft

Blinkit’s June-quarter shareholder letter, published on 22 July, disclosed a number that does not appear in its audited accounts. The company loses about 1.8 percent of net order value (NOV) to spoilage, damage, theft and shrinkage. On quarterly NOV of Rs 17,132 crore, that works out to roughly Rs 308 crore in a single quarter.

The figure matters because it dwarfs the profit. Blinkit’s adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was Rs 102 crore, so inventory losses ran at nearly three times what the business kept. The loss is already absorbed before gross profit, so it is not an add-on cost. It is baked into the thin margin operators keep debating.

The driver is structural. Over the past year Blinkit shifted from a marketplace taking a commission to an inventory-led model, moving from about 3 percent of NOV on its own stock to roughly 90 percent. Owning the shelf lifts control and margin, but it also puts perishables like fruits and vegetables on Blinkit’s own books, where they rot, break or vanish.

Management pointed to better replenishment planning and supply-chain efficiency as the fix. For brands, the read is simple. As rivals copy the inventory-led model, expect tighter shelf-life rules, stricter fill-rate penalties and more pressure on damages reconciliation. The platform now carries the risk it once passed to sellers, and it will push to claw that cost back somewhere.