Flipkart is now preparing itself to deliver your next meal

Flipkart is all set to scale up its business-targeted food delivery services, after an year of testing and looking at the conditions because of which most startups fail.

India’s largest online retailer has not ignored the cautionary signs but seems to be weighing the potential advantage of generating an expertise in hyperlocal delivery with its consumer facing business.

Flipkart started its food delivery business in Benagaluru, leveraging the tech it had for grocery delivery business. "Food is a different ball game. The challenge of point-to-point delivery is you don't geconomy of scale so you have to build a completely different level of technology and intelligence to be able to place your capacity intelligently and use it when needed," Saikiran Krishnamurthy, the head of Ekart, told ET.

Flipkart is looking to target about a thousand orders per day by March. Currently it has a few hundred orders per day. Amazon too has been reportedly looking in the food delivery business and is expected to invest in one.

A food delivery business will allow Amazon and Flipkart to 0ptimise their logistic costs. Retail ecommerce deliveries taper through the week after peaking on Mondays as majority of online purchases are made on Fridays or weekends and online ordering of food peaks towards the weekends.

Also, ecommerce deliveries are mostly done during 10m to 7 pm while on the other hand food deliveries are at peak mostly at 7pm-10pm.

Though, it isn't clear if Flipkart will eventually want to deliver food to consumers directly , like Zomato and Swiggy do.
(image: Indiatimes)