Delivery meltdown: Festive orders pile up as riders quit

The festive surge in online sales is being hampered by delivery delays, frustrating customers, potentially denting brand reputation and raising doubts about logistics firms’ preparedness to handle high volumes of e-commerce traffic.

- Sowmya Ramasubramanian & Sakshi Sadashiv

Mounting delivery partner attrition and under-staffed warehouses are responsible for the widespread delays.

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Mounting delivery partner attrition and understaffed warehouses are responsible for the widespread delays—up to 7 days in many cases—in e-commerce and quick commerce deliveries, as well as a backlog of unshipped orders, industry executives and analysts said.

The situation underscores a critical choke point in the industry’s supply chain that's unlikely to be resolved quickly, they added.

The holdup reflects a strain on the entire e-commerce ecosystem’s capacity to meet the burgeoning volume of online deliveries during what is its most profitable season.

Many orders fulfilled by major logistics firms like Blue Dart, Delhivery and Shiprocket are facing delays as long as 5-7 days in metro cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru, up from 1-2 days during non-festive season days.