Rapid grocery delivery has become a permanent part of UK retail. Grocers treat it as a growth channel, and apps like Deliveroo and Uber Eats carry a rising share of grocery orders. For brands, though, one problem remains: almost none of it is visible to the tools they use to manage the digital shelf.
In short: UK Quick Commerce (QCom) has settled around a partnership model in which retailers pick orders from their own stores and aggregators handle discovery and delivery. That structure creates a channel where customer data disappears, ranges shrink to a curated fraction, content follows different rules and performance is hard to measure. This article looks at how the channel works now, what brands are asking about it, and where measurement needs to catch up.
A channel that survived its own hype
The first wave of QCom was built on dark stores and venture capital, and the names that defined 2021, Getir, Gorillas, Weezy, Jiffy, have mostly left the UK market. What replaced them is a more durable model: established grocers picking orders from their existing stores, with aggregator platforms providing the storefront, the rider network and the customer relationship. In some cases they also sell direct, such as Tesco Whoosh.
IGD puts UK QCom at £2.4 billion in 2025 and forecasts a 10.1 per cent compound annual growth rate through to 2030, against a wider grocery market expected to struggle. The channel is also becoming habitual rather than occasional: IGD found weekly use of QCom rose from 27 per cent of users at the end of 2024 to 33 per cent at the start of 2026.
IGD's survey of 2,000 UK shoppers in the first quarter of 2026 found that 49 per cent of 18 to 24 year olds had used QCom in the past four weeks, compared with 5 per cent of over 65s. "QCom is generational," says David Shallcross, Collaboration Manager at eStore. "Younger customers have only ever known this model. As they move through university, into work and into family life, this is what they'll accept as the norm." To serve the next generation of consumers, retailers must establish a presence here.
Partner with the aggregators, or build it yourself
A retailer entering QCom has two routes available: partner with the aggregators, or build the capability in-house. They aren't mutually exclusive, and some retailers run both, pairing their own rapid delivery service with aggregator listings. Most, though, lead with partnership.
"The partner route gives a retailer instant expertise in the market," explains Shallcross. "You provide the products, set up a commercial agreement, agree how pricing and content will flow, and the range appears relatively quickly. You also inherit the aggregator's existing customer base, people who already have the app on their phone for takeaways."
What the retailer gives up in return is knowledge of its own customers. "What usually comes back from the aggregator is an order ID with a list of products against it. No name, no address, no email. The retailer picks the order without knowing who the customer is."
Building the channel in-house reverses that equation. "It's harder to scale because you have to build the technology and the operational side, including the last mile," says Shallcross. "But you know who your customers are, you can link loyalty data together, and you've got far more flexibility on pricing, promotions and content." Tesco held that position longer than anyone, keeping Whoosh inside its own app since 2021. In July 2026, Tesco shifted strategy by announcing launches on Uber Eats and Deliveroo, extending Clubcard Prices and points to both services. IGD shopper data highlights the underlying motivation: 41% of QCom consumers begin their journey by selecting their preferred aggregator rather than a specific retailer. This figure climbs to 50% among 18- to 24-year-olds. When the aggregator is becoming the storefront, staying off it costs more than the customer data is worth.
For brands, the route a retailer takes decides what data exists about their shoppers and who holds it. Where the aggregator owns the storefront, purchase behaviour fragments across three parties, and the fullest picture stays locked inside the platform.
What brands are actually asking
David Halls, VP Sales at eStore, talks to brand leaders across Europe about this channel, and he sees them dividing into recognisable groups. "You can group brands into three camps. The strategic camp sees QCom as a pillar of growth, with dedicated resources. The tactical camp is dipping a toe, with the remit sitting as part of someone else's role. The third camp is ignoring it, because bricks and mortar is the overwhelming majority of their business and they don't have the capacity."
The strategic camp is no longer just the obvious impulse categories. "Household brands are taking it seriously," Halls says. "Household categories contain a lot of “I need this now” type products (i.e. laundry/cleaners) which fit perfectly with the need for a faster delivery." Basket building is the economic engine of the whole channel. Retailers are extending their QCom ranges precisely because a bigger basket is what makes the delivery economics work, and that pulls more categories into play.
Whichever camp a brand sits in, the questions we hear follow the same pattern. "The number one question is always the data. How big is it really? QCom sales are usually aggregated inside online sales, so brands can't easily break them out. You'd need data from every aggregator to understand the size of the real prize."
Behind the sizing question sit three more. What will it cost to compete, now that aggregators run their own retail media and visibility carries a price on the platform as well as the retailer site? Where is my range actually distributed, store by store and region by region? And is any of it incremental? "My hypothesis is that much of it is incremental," Halls says. "You're creating an impulse occasion at home without leaving the house. But brands want data to prove whether it's incremental or cannibalising, and that data barely exists."
….or to put it even more simply, if you don’t play in the channel at all you’ve lost the sale anyway.
A smaller, stranger shelf
A typical supermarket lists tens of thousands of products online, while a QCom range is a curated fraction of that, built by balancing best sellers against giving customers reasonable choice. Getting into that curated range is the first battle, and it is one brands have few ways to fight. "For most brands there's no natural route into the QCom range," says Shallcross. "They can ask the retailer, but the path is limited."
For the products that do make the range, the content rules change. "The aggregator apps typically carry one mobile-ready hero image and very little secondary content," says Francis Nicholas, VP Product Strategy at eStore. "Being genuinely mobile first matters more here than anywhere else." With so little on the page, what does appear has to work harder, including the details a shopper can't check on a pack they've never held. "Allergen and dietary information carries more weight than brands expect."
Nor can that content be assumed to match the retailer's main site, because it may not come from the same place. "It's often a different back office feeding the aggregator," Nicholas says. "You have to check both." A product page that is complete and accurate on the retailer's own site can appear on the aggregator with a different image, a truncated title or missing information, and the brand won't know unless it looks.
Some familiar elements are simply absent. "Every product on the traditional online channel typically carries a rating score, and customers can read the reviews," Shallcross observes. "On the aggregators they don't seem to exist." Brands put significant effort into building ratings and reviews on retailer websites, because they influence what shoppers buy. On QCom apps that lever is largely gone, so a product's performance rests on whether it's in stock, whether it's in the range at all, and whether its image and title do their job.
Availability is the hardest of those to see, because it is hyperlocal. Stock positions vary store by store and change through the day, and the default store a shopper lands on inside an app may not be the one with the fullest range. "Tracking assortment and availability at scale, affordably, across this many small locations isn't a solved problem," says Nicholas. "That's the state of the industry today."
Where the channel goes next
Ask the eStore team where QCom lands in two years and the shared prediction is continuation rather than takeover: a convenience channel, priced at a premium, growing steadily. The economics support that view. Which? compared up to 50 grocery items across four supermarkets against the same baskets on Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats in October 2025 and found shoppers paying at least 20 per cent more, before delivery fees. Sainsbury's Nectar members saw the biggest gap, averaging 45 per cent more via Uber Eats because loyalty discounts are not passed through. Shoppers largely don't notice: Oliver Wyman's survey of 2,100 QCom users found the majority in Germany and France believed prices were the same as or lower than in offline retail. Premiums like that keep the channel in convenience territory for now.
"Convenience, slightly premium," is how Nicholas puts it. "Costs will come down, because the aggregators have to become more affordable for retailers to stay on them. And you'll see more innovation to combine deliveries, because this whole game is about increasing basket size."
The longer view belongs to demographics. The cohort that treats rapid delivery as normal is moving into the years when household spend peaks, and the channel is adapting to meet them. Loyalty schemes are extending onto aggregator platforms, which narrows the price gap for members. Ranges keep widening into bulkier products, and bigger orders are already moving from bikes to cars.
What this means for your digital shelf strategy
Put the pieces together and QCom breaks several assumptions that digital shelf management is built on. There may be no reviews to monitor, and the content may come from a feed that goes unchecked. Availability is hyperlocal and volatile, range presence decides more of the outcome than search ranking does, and the sales data needed to justify any of the investment sits fragmented across retailers and platforms.
Brands in the strategic camp are asking for that gap to close. eStore monitors product availability, content, pricing and visibility across 3,000+ retailer websites in 70+ markets, and that monitoring extends to the retailer apps and mobile sites where QCom shopping happens. It runs at 99.7%+ data accuracy. Verified retailer data partnerships address the harder problem: sales visibility that public-facing apps can't provide.
If QCom is moving up your agenda, our team can walk you through how digital shelf monitoring applies to aggregator and app-based retail today, and where verified retailer data takes it: https://www.estorebrands.com/speak-to-our-team
Key Takeaways
- UK QCom has consolidated around retailer and aggregator partnerships, and is growing at roughly twice the rate of the wider online grocery market.
- The partnership model trades customer data for reach: aggregators pass retailers an order ID and a product list, nothing more.
- Brands split into three postures (strategic, tactical, ignoring), and the strategic camp now includes household categories, not just impulse.
- The QCom shelf compresses range, reduces content to a single hero image, and drops ratings and reviews almost entirely.
- Measurement is the unsolved problem: sales sizing, distribution visibility and incrementality all lack reliable data today.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is quick commerce (QCom)?
Quick commerce is on-demand grocery and convenience delivery, typically fulfilled in under an hour through apps such as Deliveroo, Uber Eats and Just Eat, or through a retailer's own rapid delivery service. In the UK it is dominated by established grocers picking orders from their own stores.
Why do QCom apps show a smaller range than the retailer's website?
Retailers curate a deliberately compressed range for rapid fulfilment, balancing best sellers against reasonable customer choice. The range available also depends on which store fulfils the order, so it varies by location.
Who sets prices on QCom apps?
The retailer sets product prices on aggregator platforms, within the terms of its commercial agreement with the platform. Prices typically run higher than in-store, and delivery and service fees are added on top.
How can brands monitor their performance on QCom channels?
Digital shelf analytics can track availability, content, pricing and visibility on retailer apps and mobile sites. Sales measurement is harder, because QCom sales are usually aggregated inside a retailer's overall online figures; verified retailer data partnerships are one route to breaking them out.
Sources
- IGD, UK quick commerce market size and forecast, reported by Reuters, July 2026: https://live.euronext.com/en/financial-news/uks-tesco-boosts-rapid-delivery-uber-eats-deliveroo-deals
- IGD, "Gen Z pushes quick commerce into mainstream as online grocery fragments", May 2026: https://www.igd.com/about-us/press-centre/articles/gen-z-pushes-quick-commerce-into-mainstream-as-online-grocery-fragments/73135
- Tesco plc, "Tesco expands rapid delivery reach through new Uber Eats and Deliveroo partnerships", July 2026: https://www.tescoplc.com/tesco-expands-rapid-delivery-reach-through-new-uber-eats-and-deliveroo-partnerships/
- Which?, "Supermarket groceries bought on delivery apps could cost shoppers twice as much", October 2025: https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/supermarket-groceries-bought-on-delivery-apps-could-cost-shoppers-twice-as-much-aHjgH0p47Z06
- Oliver Wyman, "Why Quick Commerce Is The Next Gen Of Grocery Shopping", March 2023: https://www.oliverwyman.com/our-expertise/insights/2023/mar/quick-commerce-next-generation-grocery-shopping.html
