Flipkart to enter into the hyperlocal space with the introduction of their Flipkart Quick services

Author: Prashant Raikwar

“Dark supermarkets or stores are the retail outlets or the distribution center where sellers will be able to store inventory closer to the customers”

As the e-commerce battle gets ferocious in the country, Flipkart has entered into the hyperlocal space with the introduction of their Flipkart Quick services. The company is setting up dark stores so that they can give a tuff competition to Reliance JioMart. With the launch of this service, the company claims to offer a 90 – minute delivery service of groceries and home accessories to the public.

Flipkart quick services will be launched in selected areas of Bengaluru. These Quick services will be available in areas like Whitefield, HSR Layout, BTM Layout, Banashankari, KR Puram, and Indiranagar. Flipkart also has plans to expand these quick services in the areas of Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and many more metros in the coming months. In addition to these plans, the company has plans to utilize the Kirana stores as their storage facility. Currently, Flipkart is focusing on strengthing its warehousing capacity across various parts of India to have a better competitive advantage over its competitors in the market. For this Flipkart is looking for spaces that can offer them 3,000sq. ft to 4,000 sq. ft for their dark stores. During this ongoing pandemic situation, the demand for hyperlocal delivery services has gone up drastically. Nova enterprises that sell FMCG products to both Amazon and Flipkart have also doubled their warehousing capacity to 20,00 sq. ft in Kolkata. Company’s like Swiggy, Zomato has also entered into this segment and have been doing quite well. Dunzo has been offering these hyperlocal services for quite some time. Flipkart’s closest rival Amazon is focusing on adding up Indian shops as sellers on its platform so that they can get wider online exposure, while we can expect Jio Platform to roll out an online service for Indian grocers and small businesses soon. But still, a spokesperson from Flipkart said that the company will continue to make investments so that they can enhance their services and deliver value to the sellers and customers.

The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of the Indian hyperlocal market is expected to increase INR 2,306 crore by 2020 (pre-COVID industry estimates), according to the company statement.