New Delhi: While q-commerce or "quick commerce", which promises 10-minute home delivery of groceries, gathers widespread customer base in Indian cities, the delivery executives take extremes steps to complete in the last-mile service to keep the promise, The Indian Express reports.
Some delivery executives told the paper that to keep up with the time frame, they might have to jump traffic signals, break traffic rules, over-speed or even take footpaths. They do everything possible to deliver orders in time.
However, Blinkit, a delivery platform specialising in groceries and essentials, responded to TIE's safety queries about last-mile services that the firm encourages their store partners to change the layout based on ordering patterns in their communities. The network design ensures the stores are located within 2km of the customer. Therefore, the company keeps the safety issues in check, and their delivery executives need not break traffic rules, the firm said. It added that they had a required density of dark stores to manage orders, and they never incentivise delivery personnel on their speed. Blinkit started a 10-min delivery trend last year.
In this new delivery system, the purchase process starts even before the customer checks out, ending the purchase. Within the dark stores, the gathering of items and billing were said to be done in 2 minutes, and thus the delivery personnel had 8 mins to reach the customer's doorstep.
Meanwhile, q-commerce is predicted to grow to 3.1 billion USD in gross merchandise value by 2025, according to internet consultancy firm RedSeer. The expected value is ten times higher than the 300 million USD in 2021. In the last six months, more than 1,000 dark stores appeared across the country, TIE reports.
Taking Blinkit's footsteps, many, including Zepto, Swiggy Instamart, Bigbasket's BBNow, Dunzo, Ola Dash etc., have entered the arena.
A study by LocalCircles, subjecting 30,000 participants in 272 districts, had revealed recently that one in every four households now use q-commerce apps, and 71 per cent of them use the app for last-minute essentials or indulgence foods.
All these indicate that this commerce segment is growing, and a proportional growth in competition would be apparent. Therefore, the safety, physical and mental well being etc., of delivery personnel is a question mark, although delivery platforms vouch that they have taken enough measures to manage the delivery system smooth.