Quikr makes an investment to build its in-house logistics capabilities

Online classifieds portal Quikr is building its own logistics capabilities which will augment its recently launched doorstep pickup and delivery service. The firm has already built fleet of close to 100 delivery vehicles in Bengaluru, the first city where the service has been launched, which will work in tandem with third-party logistics providers.

Doorstep, a service launched by Quikr about six months ago, enables customers to negotiate on price, enables payments, pickup and delivery. The service is aimed at emulating the ease of making a purchase on an online marketplace, but for pre-owned products from consumers and not merchants.

"We realised that we need to complete the C2C transaction loop in order to bring convenience to our consumers. A key part of this is to offer a seamless way for consumers to move goods around. It's not an easy problem to solve because, unlike e-commerce, it involves two separate consumer touch-points instead of one," said Pranay Chulet, founder and CEO at Quikr, in a statement.

By building its own logistics capabilities, Quikr hopes to have more control over the experience of buying goods on its platform. The company claims Doorstep has experienced 100% month-on-month growth in the first six months of the service's launch.

"Taking a closer look at the operational aspects of the business, we realized that with our internal operations and delivery trucks we will have full control to seamlessly serve our consumers' needs. Bangalore being our home turf, we are rolling out our own operations here first," said Anurag Saran, chief product officer at Quikr.