THE DENSITY PLAY: HOW PORTER PIVOTED TO PROFIT

Porter organized India’s chaotic intra-city logistics for small businesses. Here’s how it cracked the code

- Priyamvada C & Sakshi Sadashiv

Porter, popular for short-haul deliveries within city limits, is building out never revenue streams like packers and movers services.

Azim Qureshi’s story is hardly unique. It is the story of millions of people who run small and mid-sized businesses across India.

Qureshi, 54, runs a kirana store in Delhi, an operation that requires moving his stock on time everyday, across multiple tranches. Until a few years ago, he relied on a chaotic network of local fleet operators, with varying degrees of success and frustration.

“Sometimes they showed up, sometimes they didn’t. Halfway through a delivery, they'd call saying the vehicle broke down, or suddenly, hike the price,” he said.

One day, help arrived on a smartphone, brought to him by his 24-year-old son. He introduced the senior Qureshi to Porter, a company now known for intra-city logistics—essentially the short-haul movement of goods within city limits.

“My son books goods on the Porter app, for supplies from the mandi to my shop, and sometimes even from my shop to customers,” the kirana owner said. “It can still be chaotic, but most of the time, it works.”

Then there is Anil Sharma, co-founder of Newtreo, a food and beverage brand with yearly sales of ₹16 crore a year. For a long time, he found himself trapped in a frustrating cycle of two-day lead times to deliver his ready-to-eat products—energy drinks, nonalcoholic beer, fruit juices among others—to customers. Using Porter brought that lead time down to two hours.

“We end up using Porter at least three-four times every day. We don't mind paying a higher cost...when compared to a local player, there is also far more transparency in pricing,” Sharma said, adding that at times, unorganised transporters hike price by as much as twofold without any explanation.