What Changed
Multiple practitioner accounts report that Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy Instamart seller dashboards calculate ROAS against Maximum Retail Price rather than the actual transaction price after platform discounting. On a product with an MRP of Rs 500 selling at Rs 340, the reported figure runs roughly 47% above the real return.
Important caveat: none of the three platforms documents this publicly. The claim is consistent across several independent agency and operator sources but is not platform-confirmed. Recalculate against net transaction value from your own order data before acting on it.
Why It Matters
This is the most expensive reporting error in Indian quick commerce right now, and it compounds: the inflated number does not just misstate performance, it drives the decision to put more budget behind it.
The arithmetic is unforgiving. Break-even ROAS is 1 divided by contribution margin after the all-in platform take rate and COGS. For a product at 65% gross margin, a real ROAS below roughly 4x to 6x is often contribution-negative once commission, fulfilment, storage and ad spend are deducted. A dashboard reading 7x on MRP against a 47% discount gap is closer to 4.7x on real transaction value — which lands right on the edge of that range rather than comfortably above it.
Rebuild the reporting off order-level data with net realised price, not the seller dashboard. Do it before the next scaling decision, not after. The gap widens on Zepto and Instamart, where promotional discounting runs heavier as part of customer acquisition.
[Verify on a live client account first. If the discrepancy does not reproduce, cut this item rather than publishing a softened version.]