Hyperlocals At Crossroads

The local delivery boom as a result of the lockdown seems to be tapering off

- Ajita Shashidhar

On March 22, when the country went into a lockdown, life came to a standstill. The fear of contracting the virus forced people to stay indoors and as they wondered how to replenish their grocery or other emergency needs such as medicines, delivery boys of Dunzo, Swiggy and Zomato came as godsend. They took orders and delivered in less than an hour. “I never felt so happy seeing the Dunzo delivery boy knocking on my door as I did on the very next day of the lockdown when I urgently needed some medicines,” says Mumbai-based graphic designer Arati Mehta. This was the time when the most-dependent kirana stores found it difficult to deliver as their staff had stopped coming to work. Neither could e-commerce giants such as Amazon, Flipkart and BigBasket find their way into people’s homes as supply chain mechanisms had come to a grinding halt.

A few days into the lockdown, the likes of ITC, Unilever, Nestle and Britannia hurriedly signed deals with delivery service providers Dunzo, Shadowfax and others to get their products delivered directly to consumers’ homes. From a service which picked up a parcel from one point and delivered to another for a cost, Dunzo found itself strengthening its consumer-facing presence, getting its inventory and price points live. “Though we had been working on two parts of the platform for almost 18 months — creating delivery infrastructure in your neighbourhood which delivers in 30 minutes times and working with local merchants to make sure they are able to take orders from consumers — something that would have taken 36 months to achieve has gotten done in nine months,” says Kabeer Biswas, Co-Founder and CEO, Dunzo.