While the nation is under serious lockdown due to the extend of which coronavirus have spread across the country, people are relying on food delivery apps for their food.
Although services like Flipkart, Amazon, Grofers, BigBasket, MilkBasket, etc are not so sure. These companies have detained their services despite government rules, cops are beating the delivery agents.
Amazon, one of India’s biggest E-commerce service have said that it will only deliver high-priority products, has requested local authorities to let it deliver products.
The company’s India VP Amit Aggarwal took to Twitter and wrote, “Our top priority has to be to flatten the curve. Thanks to the central govt for recognizing e-commerce is rendering essential service to help citizens remain at home, maintain social distancing. We sincerely appeal to local authorities to enable us to provide sustained service.”
Some Of The Advantages
According to the data by FoodBoss, when compared to Postmates, Uber Eats, Delivery.com, Caviar, and EatStreet in more than 50 cities, it saw an increase in contactless delivery options because of the coronavirus pandemic. This means that the customers want their food to be left at the doorstep without having to contact the delivery agents.
According to their data, from March 12 to March 18, we saw food delivery fees were 16.3% higher compared to the first week of February.
Surprisingly, there has been an increased hiring process across the countries, for more delivery staff.
For instance, Amazon is hiring 100,000 workers and increasing wages from $15 per hour to $17 per hour. Also, Domino’s Pizza wants to hire 10,000 employees to help delivery operations, and Walmart plans to add 150,000 new workers.
A recent report on Economic Times says that restaurants struggling with rising costs had to bear the burden of running promotions and deals even during busy hours.
Some restaurants reported that Zomato is taking advantage of the situation. The Gold membership subscription and some of the newer restaurateurs wanting to enroll had to pay a sign-up fee of Rs 45,000 to give away free food.
The rate shot up to Rs 79,000 if a restaurant that had logged out wanted back in. There are over half a million restaurants in India, excluding the unorganized ones, and the industry is valued at $4 billion.
However, rising rentals amounting to almost 20% of costs, the food at 30% and other expenses like labor and marketing at 20% are hurting the industry.
Some companies are cutting down on delivery charges in this serious time. Uber Eats stopped charging a delivery fee on orders from local restaurants in the United States and Canada. Also, Grubhub is another company that isn’t collecting any commission fees from the restaurants, which it states provides restaurants a relief of $100 million.
Things like these are not only increasing their sales but also making a great impact on their customers.
Some Problems Faced By The Food Aggregators
However, not everything is smooth here in India.
Several online food delivery companies like Swiggy and Zomato have complained of harassment by government officials, including physical abuse.
For these reasons, the Karnataka government on Monday issued a notice stating that e-commerce and home delivery fall under essential services and hence should be exempted from the restrictions imposed on citizens to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
Maharashtra, one of the most affected states of coronavirus in India too, has issued statements saying that food, medicine, etc should not be included under the restrictions imposed to contain the virus infection.
To control the situation, the apps will have to accommodate some extension of reduced fees as demand subsides.
As far as the latest reports, it is reported that Flipkart, BigBasket and Grofers will be resuming their services.
BigBasket even went ahead to share some of the cities it won’t be functioning for some time – Ghaziabad, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Nagpur, Patna, Vijayawada. However, the company is hoping to resume their services in these cities in a day or two.
But in cities like Chandigarh, Chennai, Delhi, Ludhiana, Pune, Vizag and Kochi, the company is unsure to start their services.
As for Flipkart, they have collaborated with the Bangalore Police to ensure that their delivery boys are not hassled.
For now, the companies are focusing on meeting the growing demands of customers stuck in their homes tired of cooking or struggling to refill their groceries.
Do you have a restaurant or a business related to food, dairy or groceries? How are you planning to execute your business in this pandemic?
Let us know at Skyram Technologies.
And for more blogs read here! Till then, stay safe, stay at your homes and follow the WHO guidelines.
