Flipkart on Tuesday announced the launch of its hyperlocal delivery service ‘Flipkart Quick’ that will enable customers to receive grocery, fresh vegetables, meat and mobile phones in 90 minutes. The service will be available in select locations in Bengaluru initially and gradually scaled up and expanded to six large cities by the end of the year, Flipkart Vice-President Sandeep Karwa told PTI.
The e-commerce group, owned by Walmart, said Flipkart Quick leverages the company’s supply chain infrastructure and a new location mapping technology framework to deliver more than 2,000 products across grocery, perishables, smartphones, electronics accessories, and stationary items within 90 minutes to customers.
When a customer places an order, the items are sourced from local neighborhood stores, warehouses and retail chains. Flipkart Quick — initially operational in Whitefield, Panathur, HSR Layout, BTM Layout, Banashankari, RK Puram and Indiranagar among other suburbs of Bangalore — allows customers to book a convenient two-hour slot between 6am to midnight for delivery.
The company, which is working with a range of partnered firms, is levying a delivery charge starting 29 Indian rupees (39 cents) on servicing these orders, it said.
The launch of Quick stands to provide Flipkart an opportunity to reach a new set of users, especially those who otherwise see no reason to buy online, offer more timely deliveries and also become a headache for some existing startups such as Dunzo that already operate in a similar space. It also marks Flipkart’s foray into servicing fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, and milk orders.
Many players, including Flipkart, have tried the 90-minute delivery model in the past but have not been able to scale it. “It’s not an easy problem to solve. We wanted to ensure that the experience is consistent and that the unit economics is playing out well. There is a very strong tech which we have deployed using which we believe we will be in a position to do it consistently…and we believe that unit economics is something which we should be able to solve,” Karwa said.
