Despite prevailing uncertainties on what qualifies as essential products and a lack of coordination between the Central and state governments hampering their businesses, online grocers and e-retailers have resumed delivery services in a few cities.
Here are the latest cities in which various e-commerce players have resumed their services:
BigBasket
As per the latest information by BigBasket, tweeted on Sunday night, it has resumed operations in the following cities: Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi, Noida-Ghaziabad, Gurugram, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Patna, Lucknow-Kanpur, Jaipur, Bhopal, Chandigarh Tri City, Vijayawada, Mysore, Vizag and Coimbatore. “We are operational across all cities with limited slot capacities, except Kochi and Indore,” the company informed in its statement on Monday. The company added that it was operating at 40 per cent capacity across the cities.
In Indore, BigBasket has been ordered to temporarily shut services till April 1.
Grofers
BigBasket’s rival Grofers has also resumed services at least in a few cities. Grofers informed on Monday that the non-operational days of lockdown have resulted in a backlog of five lakh orders. However, in a significant progress, the company has informed that it has been able to get passes for about 50 per cent of its staff and is working with the local authorities in the rest of the cities. Here is the city-wise status of the online grocer:
Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Pune, Hyderabad: As of March 30, the company has resumed delivery services in these cities and was expected to start taking new orders soon.
Delhi, Gurugram, Faridabad, Noida, Ghaziabad, Bhiwadi, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Mohali, Prayagraj, Guwahati, Sonipat, Vadodara, Kanpur, Rohtak: Grofers has started delivery and accepting new orders in these cities. However, customers should expect a longer delivery period as the company is clearing out the older orders first.
Aligarh: Grofers had informed via Twitter on March 30 that it was expected to start delivery in a day or two.
Durgapur, Asansol, Panchkula, Indore, Agra, Moradabad, Modinagar, Panipat, Chandigarh, Meerut: The company was facing difficulties in these cities to resume delivery services as on March 30.
Amazon
The online retailer has informed that it has resumed operations in Gurugram, Mysore, Raipur, Ludhiana, Lucknow, Noida, Bengaluru and Pune.
A day after PM Modi announced the 21-day lockdown across India on March 24, Amazon India had said it was prioritising products customers needed the most during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We are temporarily prioritising our available fulfilment and logistics capacity to serve products that are currently critical for our customers such as household staples, packaged food, health care, hygiene, personal safety and other high priority products. This also means that we have to temporarily stop taking orders and disable shipments for lower-priority products,” said an Amazon India spokesperson.
While the operations have been resumed, both Grofers and BigBasket are grappling with a huge backlog of orders. One of the main issues obstructing e-commerce companies is obtaining permits for their personnel to deliver products. Despite a notification by the central government to include e-commerce as an essential service during the ongoing 21-day nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19 infections, local authorities in several cities have not given permits to operate warehouses and deliver food, medicines and other essential items to customers.
In light of the developments, Commerce and Industry minister Piyush Goyal had on Thursday interacted with a group of chief executives from e-commerce, food delivery, cash and carry and logistics companies over video conferencing to understand the issues they were facing, before passing on his recommendations to the home ministry. The meeting was attended by Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy, Amazon India head Amit Agarwal, Snapdeal’s Kunal Bahl, apart from representatives from Swiggy, Zomato, Delhivery, NetMeds, Udaan, Walmart, Metro Cash and Carry and DHL, among others.