Flipkart offers 90-minute delivery as competition from JioMart, Dunzo, BigBasket heats up

• With Flipkart Quick, the company will now deliver groceries, phones, stationery, electrical appliances, and more – within 90 minutes.
• Flipkart Quick will begin operations in select locations in Bengaluru.
• Flipkart’s hyperlocal foray comes at a time when the sector has seen the entry of JioMart – Reliance’s bet on e-commerce, and already had the presence of the likes of Google-backed Dunzo, SoftBank-backed Grofers, and BigBasket.

Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart’s latest offering is in the hyperlocal delivery space. With Flipkart Quick, the company will now deliver groceries, phones, stationery, electrical appliances, and more – within 90 minutes.

Charging a minimum delivery fee of ₹29, customers can choose 2-hour slots or get their orders within 90 minutes between 6 am and midnight. Flipkart Quick will begin operations in select locations in Bengaluru – Whitefield, Panathur, HSR Layout, BTM Layout, Banashankari, KR Puram, and Indiranagar.

“While we start with our dark store (no walk-in) model, wherein we enable sellers to store inventory close to the consumer; this model has the potential of encouraging local entrepreneurship and enabling new business strategies and partnerships. Today, with Flipkart Quick - our Hyperlocal capability, we have the potential to bring together the whole network of neighbourhood Kirana stores onto our platform with just a click,” said Sandeep Karwa, Vice-President, Flipkart.

This adds to the string of latest releases from Flipkart – it recently bought out Walmart’s India business, forayed into social commerce with its refurbished goods platform 2GUD and also acquired a stake in Arvind Fashion for ₹260 crore.

However, Flipkart’s hyperlocal foray comes at a time when the sector has seen the entry of JioMart – Reliance’s bet on e-commerce, and already had the presence of the likes of Google-backed Dunzo, SoftBank-backed Grofers, and BigBasket.

Been in the making for over a year

Flipkart has been making several bets to ready its hyperlocal delivery service.

In December 2019, Flipkart had invested in logistics platform Shadowfax. Kalyan Krishnamurthy, chief executive officer, Flipkart had then said that the partnership with Shadowfax will help build a strong foundation for hyperlocal deliveries, by including kirana stores.

In the same month, Flipkart and Walmart had invested an undisclosed amount in the fresh produce delivery startup Ninjacart.

In May 2019, the e-commerce company had launched Flipkart Supermart to foray into grocery delivery.

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