Advances in Consumer Research
Issue 8 : 159-164
Original Article
The Psychology of Instant Gratification: Consumer Purchase Behaviour in Quick Commerce Platforms.
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1
Assistant Professor (Sr. G), Faculty of Management, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Vadapalani Campus, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
2
Assistant Professor, Management Science, MSJ College of Professional Education, Patna, Bihar, India
3
Assistant Professor, Management Science, MSJ College of Professional Education, Patna, Bihar, India.
4
Assistant Professor, Department of Management, Gurudeo College of Technology and Management, Hajipur, Bihar, India
5
Assistant Professor, Department of Management, Patliputra College of Professional Education, Patna, Bihar, India
6
Ph.D., Independent Researcher, Dhanbad, Jharkhand, India
Abstract

This paper examines the psychological mechanisms underlying consumer adoption of quick commerce (Q-commerce) platforms, the ten-to-thirty-minute delivery model exemplified by Blinkit, Zepto, and Swiggy Instamart in India and by comparable services such as Gopuff and Getir internationally, and the extent to which these platforms are reshaping impulse buying behavior. Drawing on behavioral economics, neuroscience of reward processing, and consumer psychology literature, the paper argues that Q-commerce platforms succeed commercially not primarily because of price or product selection but because they directly exploit the human preference for immediate over delayed reward, a tendency long documented in psychology as hyperbolic discounting. The study synthesizes recent primary and secondary research, including a 2025 mixed-method study on Q-commerce adoption in India, a Pearson correlation analysis linking delivery speed to impulse buying, and industry data on market growth and platform design, alongside foundational theory including the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) framework and dopamine-based reward models of decision making. Findings indicate that reduced delivery time is one of the strongest predictors of impulse purchase frequency, that Q-commerce platforms deliberately engineer urgency and low-friction checkout to compress the gap between desire and acquisition, and that this compression carries both commercial upside and consumer welfare risk, including overspending, regret, and susceptibility to manipulative interface design. The paper concludes with implications for platform designers, regulators, marketers, and consumers, and identifies directions for future research, particularly on long-term financial and psychological effects of habitual Q-commerce use....

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