In an interview with the Economic Times, Rahul Ganjoo, chief executive of District, said the platform expects offline shopping to become its second‑largest business line within three years. District, an out‑of‑home consumer entertainment and ticketing platform, operates under the umbrella of Eternal Limited, the conglomerate that also owns food‑delivery service Zomato and quick‑commerce brand Blinkit.
From Convenience to Experience Economy
Ganjoo’s comment signals a strategic pivot for one of India’s biggest consumer‑internet groups. The first generation of Indian internet businesses centred on saving time: food‑delivery apps reduced the effort of getting meals, while quick‑commerce firms promised ten‑minute grocery deliveries. Their value proposition was largely about eliminating errands and maximising convenience.
District’s ambition, however, is to sit on top of offline consumption rather than replace it. The platform does not aim to become another e‑commerce marketplace nor to act as a retailer. Instead, it seeks to be the digital layer through which consumers discover, book and pay for activities that still happen in the physical world – from planning a dinner and browsing a mall to attending concerts or reserving sports venues.
District’s Multi‑Category Strategy
Cross‑category usage on District has reportedly nearly doubled over the past eight months, with peak days showing transaction volumes up to three times those of a typical Sunday. Historically, Indian internet firms built single‑use‑case apps – a food‑delivery app for meals, a movie‑ticketing app for cinema, a shopping app for products. District aims to combine multiple consumption occasions on a single platform, increasing the frequency with which a user returns.
The logic mirrors global consumer‑platform evolution. Once a company acquires users at scale, the next challenge is to broaden the number of occasions that drive engagement. A user who only purchases movie tickets might open the app once every few weeks, whereas a user who books restaurants, shops, attends concerts and reserves sports facilities could interact several times a week, creating a more attractive economics for the platform.
Eternal has set a target of $3 billion in net order value by the fiscal year ending 2030. The projection rests on the assumption that discretionary spending will continue to expand. While dining is expected to remain the largest category, shopping is projected to become a major contributor to that total.
The outlook reflects a broader macroeconomic bet. Historically, a large share of Indian household expenditure has been directed toward necessities. As incomes rise, consumers tend to allocate a growing share of disposable income to experiences, entertainment and lifestyle activities. Similar patterns have been observed in markets such as China and Southeast Asia, where once basic needs are satisfied, spending shifts toward restaurants, travel, fitness, concerts and other social experiences. District is positioned to capture that shift, targeting India’s urban middle class as it spends more outside the home.
Investing in Physical Venues
Ganjoo also highlighted a shortage of purpose‑built venues as the biggest constraint facing India’s events industry. To address this bottleneck, District is exploring public‑private partnerships, venue‑rights agreements and direct investments in physical infrastructure. The company already operates Terraform, a concert arena in Bengaluru, and is in discussions about adding more venues.
This approach is unusual for a technology firm, which typically favours asset‑light models that focus on software rather than ownership of physical assets. District’s willingness to invest in venues suggests it sees value in securing a position not only on the demand side of entertainment but also on the supply side, where demand for large‑scale concerts, sports events and live experiences is outpacing the available infrastructure.
District’s emergence does not appear to signal a retreat from quick‑commerce or food‑delivery businesses. Blinkit continues to expand aggressively, and Zomato remains a core part of Eternal’s portfolio. The company’s strategy indicates that the two trends – convenience‑led consumption and leisure‑driven spending – can coexist. Time saved through services like Zomato and Blinkit is expected to be redirected toward experiences that cannot be delivered to the doorstep, creating a complementary ‘go‑out’ layer built on top of the existing convenience ecosystem.
Analysts note that Eternal is increasingly structuring its businesses to own different slices of consumer time. Food delivery addresses meal occasions, quick‑commerce handles urgent purchase occasions, and District focuses on leisure occasions. This layered approach offers a glimpse of where India’s consumer‑internet industry may be heading: from transaction‑focused models to platforms that drive experiences and capture the value of consumers’ discretionary time.
For years, technology companies competed to keep consumers at home. Eternal’s latest bet suggests the next chapter of growth will come from helping them go out, leveraging the time saved by its earlier convenience services to fuel a new wave of urban leisure spending.
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