Flipkart Launches Same Day Delivery Service to Take on Amazon

The same-day delivery service that was launched by Amazon in 2017 under its subscription model Prime.

Flipkart has launched same-day delivery services for a range of products including mobiles, fashion, beauty products, lifestyle, books, home appliances and electronics across 20 cities.

These cities include Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Bhubaneswar, Coimbatore, Chennai, Delhi, Guwahati, Hyderabad and Indore, among others.

The Walmart-backed company had, in 2014 started same-day delivery in 10 cities but later pulled off the curtain on its services. At that time it was charging users a shipping fee of Rs 200.

Under the new service, if customers place an order by 1 pm, they can get delivery before midnight, the company said, adding that the facility will be implemented in other cities in the next few months.

Flipkart claimed that it has invested in multiple fulfilment centres last year to enable same-day delivery along with technical capabilities for better sorting of products.

It took months of planning to ensure that orders were fulfilled from the nearest fulfillment center, reducing transit times and increasing the overall efficiency of the delivery process.

Keeping in mind that customers not only from metro cities but also non-metro cities prefer shopping on Flipkart, we are working to provide same day delivery in 20 cities, which reinforces our commitment to be at the forefront of customer satisfaction. We will further enhance this in the coming months to cover more cities and more categories, including larger devices to delight customers, said Hemant Badri, SVP, Supply Chain, Customer Experience and Recommerce business at Flipkart Group.

This comes days after Flipkart started offering the Unified Payment Interface for the first batch of users as another step towards strengthening its presence in the fintech space.

The company may also lay off some employees in the coming months amid business expansion.

The company is cutting about 1,000 jobs as part of its annual performance review process. And team size is expected to be cut by 5%. Earlier, another report had said that the retrenchment would impact around 5-7 per cent of the total workforce.

The company currently has about 22,000 employees on its payroll.

The company regularly conducts performance reviews, and the outcome will be known only by the end of March or April.

In October last year, Flipkart unveiled "Flipkart VIP" at a price of Rs 499 per year, which was Rs 500 less than Amazon Prime membership. Under the membership, the company offers same-day/next-day free delivery for VIP members in selected regions. The company did not specify whether one-day delivery is only for VIP members.

It is pertinent to note that with the increase in smartphone penetration, UPI and the overall digital payments infrastructure in the country has gained momentum. And foodtech major Zomato and the Indian arm of global digital payments startup Stripe have also received RBI approval to act as online payment aggregators.

The company's B2C arm Flipkart Internet Private Limited spent Rs 6,571.2 crore on transportation expenses in FY23, up 30% from Rs 5,045.6 crore in the previous financial year. Its operating revenue in the year stood at ₹14,845.8 crore, up 42% from ₹10,477.4 crore earned in FY22. Group Chief Executive Kalyan Krishnamurthy said the company is close to profitability due to a significant reduction in monthly cash expenses.