Estimate the operational capacity needed to support basket completion for quick commerce replenishment

Problem Statement Description

Zepto wants to understand the operational capacity required to help busy households complete their replenishment baskets through quick commerce. In this context, basket completion means a customer is able to order the set of everyday items they intended to buy—such as milk, bread, fruits, snacks, cleaning supplies, or personal care products—without abandoning, substituting excessively, or splitting the order due to stockouts or fulfillment limitations.

Your task is to estimate the capacity needed to support this outcome across the replenishment journey. This may include demand volume, basket size, ordering frequency, dark-store inventory coverage, picker workload, packing throughput, delivery availability, and any supporting operational buffers needed to maintain a reliable customer experience.

Focus on making a clear, structured estimate rather than finding a precise number. You should define the scope, state assumptions, size the relevant user population or order base, and translate customer demand into operational capacity requirements.

The experience should consider:

- The geographic and time-period scope of the estimate, such as one city, one dark store, or a daily/weekly operating window

- The target customer segment: busy households using quick commerce for recurring replenishment needs

- The unit of capacity being estimated, such as orders supported, baskets completed, picker hours, inventory units, delivery slots, or dark-store throughput

- Adoption and frequency assumptions, including how often households place replenishment orders

- Basket-level assumptions, including average number of items, category mix, substitution tolerance, and stockout sensitivity

- Operational constraints such as dark-store inventory availability, picker accuracy, packing time, delivery partner supply, and peak-hour demand

- Sensitivity checks for key assumptions like order volume, basket size, completion rate, or fulfillment productivity

- Sanity checks against real-world quick-commerce behavior, including peak demand patterns and cost implications

The goal is to produce a defensible estimation approach that connects customer replenishment demand to the operational capacity Zepto would need in order to reliably improve basket completion without overbuilding capacity or creating unsustainable fulfillment costs.