India's Flipkart to roll out same day delivery

Flipkart is gearing to roll out same day delivery of products across multiple categories in India. The move will see customers across cities including Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhubaneshwar, Coimbatore, Chennai, Delhi, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kolkata, Ludhiana, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, Pune, Patna, Raipur, Siliguri and Vijayawada get their products delivered before midnight, if they place their orders by 1 pm.

The initiative is getting rolled out starting February 2024 and will get scaled over the next several months to serve more customers across the country, the company said in a press release.

Flipkart’s initiative will help customers now get orders delivered the same day of the products including essentials, mobiles, fashion, beauty products, lifestyle, books, home appliances and electronics.

Flipkart has been delivering more than 120 million packages a month and 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 in the past year itself has invested in multiple fulfilment centres along with tech capabilities for better sortation and more throughput from its fulfilment centres that will strengthen the delivery, delighting millions of customers.

Flipkart’s team is working on ML models and technology solutions to help in meticulous route planning, optimising delivery routes, lesser pick up times from aisles, faster sortation of products ensuring that products reach customers with maximum efficiency, the release added.

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 to deliver a perfect customer experience. Flipkart has invested significantly in the infrastructure and transportation that is required to scale same-day delivery across multiple cities, with a growing network of fulfilment centres.

"As we enter 2024, millions of customers across the country will be delighted to get lakhs of products delivered to them the same-day of them placing the orders. Considering that customers not just from metro cities but non-metros cities love to shop on Flipkart, we are working to provide the same day delivery to 20 cities, reinforcing our commitment to staying at the forefront of customer satisfaction. We will further scale it in the months to come, to include more cities and more categories including large appliances, to delight the customers,” Hemant Badri, senior vice president, head of supply chain, customer experience & reCommerce business, Flipkart Group, said.

“We aim to continue to streamline our supply chain network, to seamlessly process millions of orders for our sellers and customers each day, with equal delivery efficiency in the 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. I must acknowledge the hard work and dedication of our teams who have tirelessly contributed to making this vision a reality,” concluded Badri.