Walmart-owned Flipkart to roll out same-day delivery across India

Walmart-owned e-commerce firm Flipkart is gearing up to introduce same-day delivery of products across multiple categories. This move will enable the Bengaluru-based company to deliver products to millions of customers across 20 cities, including both metro and non-metro regions. Some of the non-metro cities, include Bhubaneswar, Coimbatore, Guwahati, Indore, Jaipur, Ludhiana, Nagpur, Patna, Raipur, Siliguri, and Vijayawada.

Customers will receive their products before midnight if they place their orders by 1 pm. Order fulfilment will take place from Flipkart’s warehouses located in various parts of the country.
 

“This is for everybody and comes at no incremental cost. We aim to cover almost all of India,” said Hemant Badri, senior vice-president and head of supply chain, Flipkart Group, in an interview. “Millions of customers across the country will receive hundreds of thousands of products on the same day they place the order.”
 

Starting in February, the initiative will be rolled out and applies to non-grocery selections. Customers will receive orders on the same day across categories such as mobiles, fashion, beauty, lifestyle, books, home appliances, and electronics.
 

“We will further scale it in the months to come, covering more cities and categories, including large appliances,” said Badri. “The service is already live in Tier-I cities, and we will expand to Tier-II and Tier-III locations soon,” he added.

 

Company sources mentioned that what differentiates this service from competitors  is that any customer can access this service without any additional cost or special subscription. They highlighted the wide selection of categories and products at such a large scale as a differentiator.
 

Flipkart has been delivering more than 120 million packages a month. It has invested in building a robust supply chain to reach customers across the country, even in very remote pincodes. To enable same-day delivery, Flipkart has invested in multiple fulfilment centres and technology capabilities for better sortation and increased throughput from its fulfilment centres to strengthen delivery.
 

“About 25 per cent of our capital spend has gone into restructuring this network and designing the customer delight experience,” said Badri. Flipkart’s team is working on machine learning models and technology solutions to help with meticulous route planning. This also aids in optimising delivery routes, reducing pick-up times from aisles, and faster product sortation. The company stated that this ensures products reach customers with maximum efficiency.
 

Months of planning have been put in place to ensure that orders will be fulfilled from the nearest fulfilment centre, minimising transit times and enhancing the overall efficiency of the delivery process.
 

Badri stated that Flipkart aims to continue streamlining its supply chain network, seamlessly processing millions of orders for its sellers and customers each day, with equal delivery efficiency in metro and non-metro cities.
 

“We have invested in cutting-edge technologies, leveraged data analytics, and harnessed insights on demand patterns to ensure that we are well-equipped to anticipate and fulfil demand the very same day,” said Badri.
 

This development comes at a time when Flipkart recently raised nearly $600 million in fresh funds from parent company Walmart and another investor. Industry sources revealed that Flipkart was in talks with investors to raise a total funding round of about $1 billion.
 

“The company plans to deploy the capital to expand its infrastructure and seller support ecosystem and the latest technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI,” said a person familiar with the matter.
 

This fundraise will provide enough firepower to Flipkart to counter competition from Amazon, Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance JioMart, and Tata Digital. It will also help the company tap into the next 200 million customers in the country, especially in Tier-II and -III cities and Bharat (rural India), according to people familiar with the company’s strategy.

With a registered user base of more than 500 million, Flipkart’s marketplace offers over 150 million products across more than 80 categories.

Flipkart’s rival Amazon recently announced reaching an important delivery speed milestone in 2023. Amazon delivered to Prime members at the fastest speeds ever globally, with more than 7 billion units arriving the same or the next day, including more than 4 billion in the US and more than 2 billion in Europe.

“We’re working to get even faster in 2024,” said Doug Herrington, chief executive officer of Worldwide Amazon Stores, in a company blog post. “We’re continuing to reimagine our operations network, harnessing the power of AI to place even more items in just the right places to anticipate and meet customer demand.”

In 2022, Amazon India announced the extension of same-day delivery options to Prime members in over 50 cities and towns. The company said that thousands of products spanning categories such as wireless devices, consumer electronics, books, toys, babycare, media, kitchen essentials, luxury items, sports equipment, video games, and personal care products would now be available for free delivery within four hours. Previously, this service was only accessible in 14 cities.

Amazon highlighted that customers in cities like Surat, Mysuru, Mangaluru, Bhopal, Nashik, Nellore, Anantapur, Warangal, Ghaziabad, Faridabad, and Patna, among others, could now enjoy a swifter shopping experience.

Amazon initially introduced same-day delivery in India in 2017, emphasising its ongoing investment in speed to provide fast, reliable, and convenient delivery options for customers.

In 2021, the company also launched Amazon Day, granting Prime members the flexibility to select a specific day for grouping and delivering all their items together each week.