SoftBank-backed Meesho has tripled its delivery capacity and is enhancing speed, a company spokesperson told TOI.”We continue to collaborate with third-party logistics providers such as Delhivery, Ecom Express, Shadowfax, Xpressbees and more along with Valmo,” Meesho said. While the company did not comment on the specifics, sources said that Meesho has been able to leverage its in-house logistics platform Valmo to shorten delivery timelines to 2-3 days from 6-8 earlier.
Beauty retailer Nykaa has been ramping up its express delivery service in major cities. It now services 50% of orders in the top 12 cities, including Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad within the same or next day. The idea is to widen the coverage of express delivery to 70-80% of orders in these cities in a few months. “Nykaa also plans on expanding these capabilities to include an additional 110 cities across the country which will witness over 50% of their order volumes delivered within the next day,” the company said. This cluster of more than 120 cities put together contributes to over two-thirds of Nykaa’s overall order volumes.
Amazon is expanding its same-day delivery network to fulfil orders for Prime members faster. Walmart’s Flipkart is also adding more cities from the initial 20 to its network of same day and next day deliveries in the run-up to the festive season which starts with Navaratri. “In India, so far in 2024, nearly 50% of all Prime member orders across a wide selection of products – from eye liners to baby products and phones – have arrived the next day, same day or faster… our vast logistics footprint spanning data centres, sort centres, delivery stations and partner networks enables fast, reliable deliveries nationwide across metros and smaller cities alike,” an Amazon India spokesperson said.
Flipkart has also set up 11 fulfilment centres, the company’s head of growth (VP) Harsh Chaudhary said. The firm, however, didn’t comment on its quick commerce strategy for the festive season. While the entire play of quick commerce is premised around rapid deliveries, companies in the space are now fast moving beyond metros to cover non-metro cities, posing a stiff challenge for e-commerce companies. Swiggy Instamart has expanded to six new cities, like Rajkot, Kanpur, Warangal and Ludhiana, taking its operations to 43 cities in all. Besides, Swiggy is also partnering with local vendors in these cities, a strategy which may lure consumers to subscribe to the service. Zomato‘s Blinkit is going equally aggressive on expansion, having recently launched in smaller cities like Haridwar, Bathinda, Kochi and Vijayawada.
To service more cities, players are investing heavily to set up more dark stores. BigBasket, for instance, is adding 50 dark stores every month. “We are launching dozens of new dark stores in cities like Ahmedabad, Kanpur and Chandigarh. Our recent success in Nashik, with over 1,000 order daily in just six weeks, shows the potential in these markets,” said Aadit Palicha, co-founder and CEO at Zepto.