E-commerce major Flipkart has launched a 90-minute hyperlocal delivery service Flipkart Quick in Bengaluru. Besides delivering grocery, dairy products and vegetables, the service will also ensure ordering of mobiles, electronics and home accessories.
At present, Flipkart Quick covers select areas of Bengaluru such as Whitefield, Panathur, HSR Layout, BTM Layout, Banashankari, KR Puram and Indiranagar. The company is likely to expand to more cities in the coming months.
Customers can choose to order in the next 90 minutes or book a 2-hour slot starting with a minimum delivery fee of Rs 29. Flipkart will leverage on-demand logistics service Shadowfax for the quick delivery service. The Walmart-controlled entity had invested $60 million in Shadowfax in December last year.
With Flipkart Quick, the company is directly competing with Swiggy Stores, Google-backed Dunzo and BigBasket’s ‘Express Delivery’ service. According to an ET report, Flipkart also plans to move to a hybrid delivery model by leveraging Kirana stores and its logistics arm Ekart to fulfil orders.
Flipkart Quick has come at a time when the online grocery space is going through an exciting phase because of JioMart. Launched in May, JioMart is close to becoming the largest e-grocer in the country. JioMart is expected to pose a significant threat to incumbents – BigBakst and Grofers.
So far, Flipkart hasn’t made any serious effort to crack grocery. It attempted to facilitate on-demand grocery within 60 minutes though ‘Nearbuy’ in 2015, but the experiment didn’t work out. However, it can’t afford to ignore anymore as the segment is going to play a crucial role in driving the scale of e-commerce companies.
Flipkart is now in a better position to fulfil on-demand grocery demands as it has built robust logistics infrastructure through eKart and investment in Shadowfax.
Amazon, on the other hand, tried out several models through Prime and Pantry. While the company had pulled the plug from Amazon Prime Now early this year, Amazon Pantry has scaled up to over 100,000 daily orders. Flipkart appears to be making a differentiated attempt from others to crack on-demand grocery, electronics, mobile and accessories (not only grocery) through the new service.
