<p>Tapping on the country's renowned supply chain, online marketplace Flipkart today said it has tied-up with the 'Dabbawalas' of Mumbai to ensure last mile delivery to consumers.<br /><br /></p>.<p>It is also experimenting with a crowd-sourced delivery model that will connect local sellers and buyers with the help of voluntary delivery personnel, reducing delivery time.<br /><br />The move comes amidst growing competition among e-commerce firms such as Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon, who are ramping up their logistics and delivery network to build a sound last mile delivery channel to beat rivals in gaining a dedicated customer base.<br /><br />"Dabbawalas have been in the profession of transporting lunch boxes with absolute precision for more than 120 years. They are a huge inspiration on how to conduct business without any paper or administrative back-up to keep the costs down," the Bangalore-based firm said in a statement.<br /><br />The firm has partnered with one union of the dabbawalas.<br /><br />As a partner to eKart, the unique community of Dabbawalas will initially collect Flipkart marketplace shipments from the delivery hubs and deliver it to customers, while picking their dabbas, it added.<br /><br />At present, the person who will be part of this pilot will be involved in the last mile delivery and will not communicate with seller or merchant.<br /><br />"The first batch of Dabbawalas have undergone training at Flipkart's delivery centres. At this stage, they will be using a paper-based tracking system with the idea being to gradually train them on the usage of apps and other wearable tech," it added.<br /><br />Flipkart's crowd-sourcing model has delivery personnel on a specialised delivery programme, post extensive background verifications, and they are free to take up deliveries as per their convenience, the firm said.<br /><br />It will reduce the delivery process by enabling these personnel to directly collect the package from the local seller and deliver it to the buyer, a step that will reduce order to delivery time to as little as three to four hours.<br /><br />At present the pilot is operational in Bangalore and the service is currently available for shipments of less than Rs 5,000 value.<br /><br />Flipkart today also announced the appointment of Peeyush Ranjan as Senior Vice President and Head of Engineering.<br /><br />Previously, he also managed Motorola's Value Devices engineering group and was Managing Director of Google India for research & development.<br /><br />He will work closely with Mukesh Bansal, Head of Flipkart Commerce Platform and the Commerce Platform’s leadership team.<br /><br />The appointment comes shortly after Punit Soni joined Flipkart as Chief Product Officer. He was a senior product management executive for Google and Motorola.</p>
<p>Tapping on the country's renowned supply chain, online marketplace Flipkart today said it has tied-up with the 'Dabbawalas' of Mumbai to ensure last mile delivery to consumers.<br /><br /></p>.<p>It is also experimenting with a crowd-sourced delivery model that will connect local sellers and buyers with the help of voluntary delivery personnel, reducing delivery time.<br /><br />The move comes amidst growing competition among e-commerce firms such as Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon, who are ramping up their logistics and delivery network to build a sound last mile delivery channel to beat rivals in gaining a dedicated customer base.<br /><br />"Dabbawalas have been in the profession of transporting lunch boxes with absolute precision for more than 120 years. They are a huge inspiration on how to conduct business without any paper or administrative back-up to keep the costs down," the Bangalore-based firm said in a statement.<br /><br />The firm has partnered with one union of the dabbawalas.<br /><br />As a partner to eKart, the unique community of Dabbawalas will initially collect Flipkart marketplace shipments from the delivery hubs and deliver it to customers, while picking their dabbas, it added.<br /><br />At present, the person who will be part of this pilot will be involved in the last mile delivery and will not communicate with seller or merchant.<br /><br />"The first batch of Dabbawalas have undergone training at Flipkart's delivery centres. At this stage, they will be using a paper-based tracking system with the idea being to gradually train them on the usage of apps and other wearable tech," it added.<br /><br />Flipkart's crowd-sourcing model has delivery personnel on a specialised delivery programme, post extensive background verifications, and they are free to take up deliveries as per their convenience, the firm said.<br /><br />It will reduce the delivery process by enabling these personnel to directly collect the package from the local seller and deliver it to the buyer, a step that will reduce order to delivery time to as little as three to four hours.<br /><br />At present the pilot is operational in Bangalore and the service is currently available for shipments of less than Rs 5,000 value.<br /><br />Flipkart today also announced the appointment of Peeyush Ranjan as Senior Vice President and Head of Engineering.<br /><br />Previously, he also managed Motorola's Value Devices engineering group and was Managing Director of Google India for research & development.<br /><br />He will work closely with Mukesh Bansal, Head of Flipkart Commerce Platform and the Commerce Platform’s leadership team.<br /><br />The appointment comes shortly after Punit Soni joined Flipkart as Chief Product Officer. He was a senior product management executive for Google and Motorola.</p>