Flipkart has reduced focus on its instant delivery service Flipkart Quick to focus on the next-day grocery delivery model Flipkart Supermart.
A Flipkart spokesperson said, “Flipkart Quick has scaled down from a few cities and continues in a couple of cities as we build a sustainable business model in Quick commerce that is centred around Fresh Grocery.” As of June 2022, fresh produce was making 50 per cent of Flipkart Quick orders
Launched in 2020, Flipkart Quick started as 90-minute grocery delivery service and over time the delivery time was reduced to 30-45 minutes. In June, Smrithi Ravichandran, Vice-President and Head of Grocery, Flipkart told businessline that Flipkart Quick was doing 30 minute deliveries in five cities and was planning to launch the 30-minute service in Chennai too. Almost five months later, Flipkart Quick has scaled down operations.
Aftermath
As of November 12 morning, Flipkart Quick was not serviceable in Bengaluru city, where the service initially started. It was, however, serviceable in some areas of Delhi, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Kolkata, among other cities. This development was first reported by ET Prime.
In the aftermath of this scale-down, some of the Flipkart Quick workforces have been consolidated with Flipkart’s Supermarket service which delivers groceries the next day in a selected time slot. According to the spokesperson, “Flipkart’s Supermarket model has scaled significantly over the last year leading the company to focus more on this model. Over the past year and a half, we have scaled our facilities to 23 fulfillment centers across the country that creates thousands of employment opportunities.” She added that Flipkart is bullish about grocery and the company’s supermarket model today services over 1,800 towns and 10,000 pincodes and will continue to expand.
This is in line with Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy’s belief that 10-15 minute deliveries are not fit for the Indian market. Flipkart and Walmart have invested in an agritech startup Ninjacart which is a seller with Flipkart Quick. Ninjacart has its own fulfillment centers, where they bring fresh produce from the collection centers of the farmers and then give it directly to the Flipkart quick dark stores.