Flipkart's Quick Commerce Entry: Right Timing, Wrong Address?

What is Flipkart's strength?

Flipkart has launched “Minutes", its quick commerce (10 mins grocery delivery) business and is running a pilot in Bangalore.

For ecommerce players like Flipkart and Amazon, quick commerce is not an option anymore as Zepto and Blinkits of the world are eating away their pie.

But the question for Flipkart is that the brand enjoys a lot more loyalty and presence in tier 2 and 3 cities, as opposed to tier-1 cities, where Amazon has a lead.

For Flipkart to launch quick commerce business in tier-1 cities (like it is doing now), the company needs to rebuild its brand and that'll mean a very little leverage that it enjoys/carries - as the brand doesn't enjoy the same level of loyalty it does in tier 2/3 cities.

And for Flipkart to launch Flipkart Minutes, i.e. quick commerce in tier-2 cities, it needs to completely reimagine the supply side network as tier-2 has been difficult to crack (lower ARPU, supply side is fragmented, logistical issues etc).

This isn't going to be easy for Flipkart as the incumbents are as hungry and nimble while Flipkart has been a steady execution engine studded with many layers - i.e. less hungry, more coolish.

Do you think Flipkart should have launched its quick commerce service in tier-2 cities first? That'd have been a 'talk of the town' and a strong differentiator and importantly, an opportunity to operate in a wide blue ocean market.

Is Flipkart minutes rightly timed but operating in the wrong address?