36.2 Retail and Quick Commerce

By Ravindra Bagale Last updated: 6 October 2026

Dark-store and kirana work in Pune and Nashik is judged on cancelled baskets and late deliveries, not on how many orders the app created. You will meet these in a quick-commerce interview and on an operations page (the build is Module 28; the design rules are Module 23).

KPI	What the number means	Who uses it	Action it drives
AOV	Delivered sales divided by delivered orders. One basket, in ₹.	City manager	If AOV falls, check mix (small top-up orders) before celebrating more orders.
Cancellation rate	Cancelled orders divided by all orders.	Dark-store lead	A high rate means stock, rider, or a wrong pin. Open those orders.
% delivered under 10 min	Delivered orders that took 10 minutes or less, divided by delivered orders.	Operations head	Below the promise, add a rider or cut the SKU list. Do not add more orders.

Fictional sample rows. One week. Pending orders are orders that are neither delivered nor cancelled. Sales are delivered sales only.

Store	City	Orders	Delivered	Under 10 min	Cancelled	Delivered sales
Kothrud	Pune	40	28	18	6	₹12,600
Baner	Pune	30	24	20	2	₹10,800
Hadapsar	Pune	20	14	8	4	₹5,600
Gangapur Road	Nashik	30	26	22	1	₹13,000
College Road	Nashik	24	16	12	2	₹6,400
Satpur	Nashik	16	12	10	1	₹5,600

Worked from those rows.

Orders are 40+30+20+30+24+16 = 160. Delivered orders are 28+24+14+26+16+12 = 120. Cancelled orders are 6+2+4+1+2+1 = 16. Under 10 minutes are 18+20+8+22+12+10 = 90. Delivered sales are ₹12,600+₹10,800+₹5,600+₹13,000+₹6,400+₹5,600 = ₹54,000.
AOV is delivered sales divided by delivered orders. 54,000 ÷ 120 = ₹450.
Cancellation rate is cancelled divided by all orders. 16 ÷ 160 = 10.0%.
% under 10 min is under-10 deliveries divided by delivered orders. 90 ÷ 120 = 75.0%.

Pune alone: orders 90, delivered 66, cancelled 12, under 10 min 46, sales ₹29,000. AOV is 29,000 ÷ 66 = ₹439 (nearest rupee). Cancellation is 12 ÷ 90 = 13.3%. Under 10 min is 46 ÷ 66 = 69.7%.

Nashik alone: orders 70, delivered 54, cancelled 4, under 10 min 44, sales ₹25,000. AOV is 25,000 ÷ 54 = ₹463. Cancellation is 4 ÷ 70 = 5.7%. Under 10 min is 44 ÷ 54 = 81.5%.

	Good KPI	Vanity metric
From the same rows	Cancellation 10.0%, and 75.0% under 10 min	160 orders
Why	Hadapsar is 4 cancelled out of 20 (20.0%) and only 8 of 14 delivered orders under 10 min (57.1%). Gangapur Road is 1 of 30 cancelled (3.3%) and 22 of 26 under 10 min (84.6%).	160 looks busy. It hides Hadapsar. A manager who reports only orders will add riders to the wrong store.

What the manager does. The Pune city manager opens Hadapsar first: which SKUs were missing, and which hour the 6 slow deliveries sat in. The Nashik manager does not copy Hadapsar's order count. Gangapur Road is the pattern in this file. Satpur is fine on speed (10 of 12) but small. Do not close it because the order card looks low.

Ravindra Bagale's Tip

A common mistake is including the cancelled amount in AOV and then dividing by delivered orders. If you want the basket AOV, use delivered sales only. The Module 28 measure takes SUM(Amount); remember that and write it in the label. Remember this rule.

Fix common mistakes

Wrong result	Reason	Correction
AOV inflated or deflated	Wrong denominator (all orders incl. cancelled)	Revenue ÷ delivered orders
Cancellation rate 14.3%	Divided by delivered (1 ÷ 7)	Cancelled ÷ all orders = 1 ÷ 8 = 12.5%

Practise independently

Practice task

Compute AOV, cancellation rate and % under 10 min for the sample.

Practice file (fictional): visuals_orders_apr_may_2026.csv

Hints

7 delivered of 8.

Solution

AOV ₹300; cancellation 12.5%; % under 10 min 42.9%.