Surge in orders slows down e-grocer deliveries

The waiting time has gone up to four our days, and longer in some neighbourhoods

Delivery time across various e-commerce sites has increased from a few hours to five days in Bengaluru.

The announcement of a state-wide lockdown from May 10 to 24 has resulted in a sudden spike in orders.

BigBasket is taking up to five days to deliver. Earlier, it used to deliver the same day or the next-day.

The portal has now launched a tokening system. It takes up to 24 to 48 hours to be able to place an order.

“We have received a huge number of orders and our entire team is working towards getting deliveries back to normal,” says a representative of BigBasket.

Shoppers on Amazon Fresh, Grofers, Swiggy Instamart and Flipkart Supermarket are also facing similar delays.

Amazon Fresh takes up to four days to deliver orders from its usual three to six-hour delivery capability. Some neighbourhoods take longer.

While Grofers is back to offering next-day delivery in limited slots, it is not functioning in many localities, and Flipkart Supermart takes up to four days to deliver.

The police barricades are adding to the delays. “We have to leave our vehicles and walk a distance,” says Umesh (name changed on request), Swiggy delivery agent.

A brand expert says companies should anticipate such situations, and expand distribution capacity by 40 per cent. “This only shows the many shortcomings of our economy. On one end, there is a vaccine shortage and on the other, something as simple as daily essentials is not being delivered,” says Harish Bijoor, founder of Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.

Grocery portals should have more delivery personnel and vans ready for times such as this. “They need to scale up and be prepared as they passed through a similar trend last year,” he says.

Bengaluru trend

According to a survey conducted by community networking website LocalCircles, a large number of households in Bengaluru will depend on home deliveries as their primary channel of purchase over the next three months. While 16 per cent depend on home delivery from local grocery stores, 34 per cent depend on e-commerce sites.