TL;DR
Zepto, an on-demand grocery delivery platform built around minutes-level delivery, needed a checkout fast and reliable enough to match that speed promise — any friction or delay at payment undermines the core value proposition of instant delivery. Multiple payment methods and gateways ran without dynamic routing, two-factor authentication required app-switching that slowed time-sensitive purchases, and repeat orders required re-entering payment details each time.
Juspay deployed Payment Orchestration for real-time PSP routing, Hyper Checkout for a consolidated no-code payment page, Native OTP for in-app authentication without app-switching, and Tokenization for one-click reorders. Together, these reduced transaction failures during traffic surges, cut checkout friction on time-sensitive purchases, and made repeat ordering faster.
| What Zepto Needed | What Juspay Delivered |
| Reliable payment success during peak order surges | Payment Orchestration with real-time, success-rate-based PSP routing |
| A fast, unified checkout for time-sensitive orders | Hyper Checkout consolidating payment methods into one no-code payment page |
| Frictionless 2FA without leaving the app | Native OTP with automatic in-app OTP reading |
| Fast, secure reordering for repeat customers | Tokenization enabling one-click checkout without re-entering card details |
Products Used
- Payment Orchestration
- Hyper Checkout
- Native OTP
- Tokenization
Zepto's core proposition is delivery measured in minutes, which means every step in the customer journey — including payment — is implicitly held to that same speed standard. A checkout flow that's merely "fast by industry standards" is still a mismatch for a platform whose entire value proposition depends on eliminating delay, and grocery orders in particular are often time-sensitive purchases where a customer abandoning at checkout has an easy substitute in a physical store.
Supporting a diverse user base at scale meant integrating multiple payment methods — wallets, credit cards, debit cards — across multiple gateways, but without dynamic routing between them, transaction success rates were exposed to whichever gateway happened to be underperforming at a given moment, with no automatic way to shift volume elsewhere. This risk compounds during peak ordering windows and promotional surges, when transaction volume — and the cost of any processing failure — is highest.
Two-factor authentication added a further point of friction: OTP-based authentication typically requires switching to a messaging app to retrieve a code, which is a meaningful delay for a purchase meant to complete in seconds. And because Zepto's business depends on repeat ordering, any checkout friction that resurfaces on every reorder — like re-entering card details — compounds each time a customer returns rather than being a one-time cost.
Routing Transactions in Real Time with Payment Orchestration
Payment Orchestration routes each transaction to the best-performing PSP based on real-time network load and success-rate data, rather than a fixed gateway assignment. This is what keeps transaction success rates stable during traffic surges — when a PSP's performance degrades under load, routing shifts toward processors that are currently performing better, rather than continuing to send volume through a degrading path.
Route selection also factors in processing cost, so orchestration optimizes for lower payment processing fees where success rates allow it, rather than treating cost and reliability as separate concerns. This routing layer is designed to scale with traffic surges specifically, which matters for a platform where order volume during promotions or peak hours can spike sharply relative to baseline.
Consolidating Checkout with Hyper Checkout
Hyper Checkout consolidates credit cards, debit cards, net banking, and wallets into a single payment page, replacing a multi-step, multi-redirect flow with one streamlined interface. Fewer redirects directly reduces the time between order confirmation and payment completion, which is the mechanism that curbs cart abandonment on time-sensitive purchases.
No-code customization lets Zepto update the payment interface for new promotions or branding without engineering cycles, keeping the checkout page current without treating each update as a development task.
Removing Authentication Friction with Native OTP
Native OTP reads and applies OTPs automatically within the Zepto app, removing the need to switch to a separate messaging app to retrieve a code. Eliminating app-switching removes both the time cost and the error risk of manually copying a code across apps, which is what improves authorization success specifically — a delayed or mistyped OTP is a common point of transaction failure that Native OTP removes structurally rather than through user education.
Enabling Fast Reorders with Tokenization
Tokenization replaces stored card numbers with secure tokens, so card details are never held in a form that's directly usable if compromised, reducing fraud exposure. For returning customers, this is what enables one-click checkout — tokenized details stored securely within the app let a repeat order skip payment entry entirely, which matters specifically because Zepto's growth depends on repeat ordering rather than one-time transactions.
Results: Faster Transactions, Higher Conversions
- Improved transaction success rates from real-time PSP routing that adapts to network load and performance during peak order volume
- Reduced cart abandonment from a consolidated checkout page and app-native OTP authentication removing steps from time-sensitive purchases
- More repeat purchases from tokenized one-click reordering removing payment entry as a barrier to returning customers
Looking Ahead
As Zepto expands into new cities, its payment infrastructure scales with added transaction volume without requiring separate routing logic per market. Payment Orchestration, Hyper Checkout, Native OTP, and Tokenization form a checkout layer built to hold up under surge conditions as order volume grows, keeping payment speed aligned with Zepto's minutes-level delivery promise.
