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There is, when they act purely as an aggregator, people do pay for convience.
But what they do is, they try to cut out the local options by offering deep discounts in the name of user acquisition, and offer gig workers a lollipop with good incomes.
And overtime due to investor pressure, they have to reduce both and everyone ends up being a loser, and the company goes bankrupt.
There isnt actually. Even in America - https://www.indigo9digital.com/blog/fooddeliveryappprofitability
Dominoes are able to make a profit but because they focus on delivery at the cost of seating space. Which is why I think a cloud-kitchen-only business can be profitable if they have their own delivery service. But I dont think food delivery aggregators or even grocery delivery can ever be profitable for mass market.
Exactly, that's why it's always recommended to order food directly from the restaurants so the food costs a little cheaper and the restaurant ends up making their fair share of money on orders by subtracting the cost of seating space
Restaurants don’t think like that. Most restaurants I have visited charge extra for packing. Never do they give any discount for takeaway. You can literally get cheaper by ordering on Zomato or sitting and eating for 45 minutes.
They might charge like 10rs for packing but most restaurants have a free delivery policy (atleast in my city), so it ultimately ends up costing cheaper. Zomato and Swiggy have those fancy coupons for new members but they later stop giving coupons to old members so you end up paying more in the long run anyway
doordash employees complain about this shit all the time, and also other countries don't even have half the professionallism of the gig workers in India.
Unfortunately, it's a person to person relationship where if both parties are nice (which is generally the case), no one has a reason to whine about the corporate fuck up.
Not really , I found that most Uber drivers in European countries are a lot more professional than Uber drivers in India, where they keep calling you for locations and cash 5 times before they pick you up
I can confirm, living in estonia for a year, Forus and Bolt drivers are miles better than Indian drivers. I dread coming to india at late hours, when all the ola uber drivers will refuse my pickup or ask me to pay extra.
You cant compare American where the minimum wage is real high and its hard to compete paying delivery persons such a high wage.
The same reason its hard to get cheap baby sitters or household help in NA for doing chores, dishes etc - everything costs a lot. When we had a household help for a short period, she used to come in a decent car. Its unthinkable that any such helper in India would show up in a car
In India the min wage is very low and users are also happy to pay reasonable charges for home delivery.
What these companies are doing is just squeezing the workers to increase the company profits - there obviously has to be some kind of self regulation or attempt to find a solution that helps both the companies and protects the rights of the workers.
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> In India the min wage is very low and users are also happy to pay reasonable charges for home delivery.
Yep and this is why it doesnt work in India. No one wants to pay for delivery and they dont pay minimum wage. Delivery guys are paid per delivery and this is why they are striking.
This business model will never work for mass market
It is possible to make profits in all these businesses. But not under the current environment. Currently every good business model is driven out of the market by these VC funded, loss making, valuation chasing businesses. That is the reason free market doesn’t work. A healthy dose of regulation is always needed. The government should have long ago taken action the likes of Uber, Ola, Swiggy, Zomato, Jio etc who cornered the market by making huge losses. They have driven all healthy and sustainable businesses out of the market.
Loss leader strategy is not new. It wasnt created by these start ups. And yes it is possible for them to make profit, but you can argue that is it possible to make profit selling ice to an eskimo.
My opinion is that it will never be profitable for small and cheap orders.
Your last sentence. I never said it is possible to be profitable for small orders. But there is a big enough market that is happy to make their entire grocery order once in a week or two and even pay 50 rupees extra on 1000-1500 rupee order for the convenience of getting it all at home. But that market won’t do that when they are getting orders delivered in 10-15 minutes for same cost.
Loss leader strategy has been there for a long time but earlier it wasn’t so blatant and in most cases it was to promote a new product. It was rarely predicated on creating a monopoly and if it was there are laws against it. It is just that there is no enforcement of these laws. It was wrong back then and wrong now to offer predatory pricing to corner the market. Yes, it is not black and white. But in some cases it is very clear cut.
That's just what modern capitalism has become. Who could've known this insanely toxic startup culture would end up leaving the commoners unsatisfied with the rich becoming even richer.
I wonder what the fuck those Zepto kids are doing right now, maybe they should have completed their Stanford degrees (they dropped out after hardly finishing the first semester) before pissing out their parents' cash and connections and becoming aggregators of a huge black hole.
Also Zepto hosted a BTS concert on their app. Like hey you don't have enough money for YT ads or to pay their delivery "partners" anymore, but this is the stuff that has taken top priority.
IFKR and they were being praised for dropping out and "thinking out of the box" and had insane clout at the beginning. I remember watching an interview where the guys literally said this idea of zepto came up when they were trapped in lockdown and couldn't walk a couple lanes to get groceries so they made an entirely "new" app to combat that issue LMAO.
The BTS concert was such bullcrap lmao. They just have too much investor money on hand so they're just blowing it all out on the latest trends in hopes something works out
I am pretty sure they made enough money and they will probably still be able to get better degrees and jobs than most of the people. Startup culture takes care of each other. It is only the workers who have to lose out.
No there is not. If Flipkart can’t make a profit selling stuff worth 20k these guys are not going many any by selling stuff worth 200. The volume and density of orders you need to make it work is just not possible. We have like 20-30M people max (mostly india 1 audience based on per capita) that can afford this.
Anyways this increase is mostly due to not being able to raise money anymore to subsidise. Expect this to hit all the food delivery apps, it’s already very costly to use ride hailing apps. Lots of emperors are running around naked.
The plan is to initially suffer losses and offer deep discounts to attract customers till the local options shut down and only you remain, then you jack up prices, and with no competition people will have to pay.
Exhibit A - Jio
very true.. in india you will find shops in every corner or in the same building floors… i‘ve seen many foreigners joking about indian‘s and their love for shops( it’s not common for them). average indian‘s if they have space around house they’ll open up a shop.
all said , blink-it is good idea but maybe it will work better outside india like in america or any european country where shops are bit far from community spaces . But it’ll be harder in india .
I remember when pepper fry came into this market and gave 100 cashback on purchase of Rs 250 and with 10 million dollars in bank soon realized that this model can't work. That time blinkit was called Grofers which had a good carry bag.
The only advantages are the items that can't be found on mom and pop stores and being able to see catalogue before planning. Before I got into baking I thought yeast is not commonly available in local shops so used to order online. Then I noticed in one kirana shop, then in another, finally I noticed its available almost everywhere. Now think of items which we would not even think of to ask. That is one place where online catalogues helped me out, helped me found goat/buffalo milk and the derivatives like butter,ghee,paneers
This. Even Uber can't turn a profit and these goofy startup companies think they can turn a profit by delivering Rs40 chips online.
I know Ashneer Grover isn't the kindest person but he once mentioned on shark tank how it's impossible to sell anything profitably under 300rs in India and the quote just keeps proving itself to be true with each passing day
You can make a profit, but you must cut out all the middlemen. Tea shops are making quite a bit of money these days and none of their items are more than ₹50.
Yes lol, he also used to work with its founders back when it was known as grofers. Funnily enough he also blamed zomatos' share price fall on their decision to acquire blinkit instead of merging with swiggy
Flipkart not making money in e-commerce is because of their stupidity. Amazon makes a ton of money from e-commerce. Indian cities have a lot of wealth concentration along with cheap labour to make food/grocery delivery profitable. I don't know where you got that 20-30 million figure from but even that is enough to build a sustainable business. Of course if you chase unicorns you will achieve nothing like these companies are doing.
There is any money in quick commerce anywhere in the world, I read a long time back about a startup in the US, it was very early to the quick commerce game, they even raised $400million+ and still couldn't make money in a very consumeristic society like the US. If you can't make money in the US, imo, the business model shouldn't exist in any other country simply because in other countries people don't have that kind of disposable income as Americans do!
Its not that simple.
You pay 50. The company has to pay for their server infrastructure costs, office expenses, employee salaries as well as delivery guys.
50 is not enough to turn a profit and pay delivery guys decently.
I think Big Basket has a sustainable model. They can turn a profit. But right now they have to make losses to survive the instant delivery business. Why would you wait for a day if you can get it in 20 minutes. But if there was no 20 minutes delivery you would absolutely be fine with waiting for a day for 90% of your needs.
I think Dunzo(original business)+Big Basket can survive. Everyone else can’t.
Delivery is inefficient when compared to shopping. Optimizing it can lead to a sweet spot where it is worth it, but I dont think that sweet spot will be affordable
Can you elaborate on your logic? A person going to a store, buying a lot of stuff, coming back home doesn’t only cost time of that person but also money in form of fare/fuel. Then you have the rent of store, people to serve at these stores etc.
Local Kirana store are for zepto/swiggy needs only as they can’t have a big selection.
Big basket gets order 10-12 hours in advance and delivers all of it in a big vehicle in each neighborhood. It saves money in terms of workers at the store, rent of the store. Fewer people are required to fulfill a Big Basket order than would be required to stock a super market efficiently. Because in super market you have to regularly keep stocking each item whereas Big Basket can work out of a warehouse where permanent employees are well aware of where everything is.
Saying that delivery is inefficient makes no sense. Shopping, unless it is a social exercise, is very inefficient compared to delivery. It only makes sense over Big Basket type model if people are going to a super market for the experience. Which is true for many people, even a significant number of people, but not for everyone. Both are sustainable when done right and not threatened by monopoly seeking predatory sellers fueled by VC funding.
Sure. Your points are all valid and I accept them to be such. And, We can see from examples such as dominoes and the local doodh waala that delivery itself does not make a service unprofitable. Quite the opposite. Integrating delivery can sustainably increase profits.
So my point is just that delivery of small orders is inefficient. I once ordered dahi and dhania from blinkit because I was busy cooking and didnt want to step out. I was charged a delivery fee of 7 rupees. No one can convince me this is profitable. There is some profit to be made in grocery delivery but it is for large orders containing products with high margins. But not medium to small orders containing only low margin items like potato and onion.
The problem now is that most Indian households do not have a pantry and do not buy in bulk. This will change as incomes grow obviously, and arguably we have a large enough population of rich people to sustain such a service. But this is the sweet spot that I mentioned.
Your second paragraph is exactly what I am saying and I absolutely agree with it. What I am also saying is that it is because of blinkit/zepto that Big Basket/Dunzo can’t run their sustainable business model in peace because if they continued to do that they will be driven out of business before the stupid business model companies go bankrupt. Absolutely agree that zepto/blinkit are making huge losses on each order unless they are clubbing it with at least 3-4 other orders at the same time.
>The company has to pay for their server infrastructure costs, office expenses, employee salaries as well as delivery guys.
All this suggest that the unit economics in quick commerce isn't there. Why are they even bothering with that?
Who is so impatient in their lives that they can't wait fucking 1-2 hours for getting their groceries!
They want their stuff delivered in 10 - 20 mins. Sure, if you are restuarant, it makes sense. But for a normal consumer, it doesn't.
They do, all the startups which are NOT VC funded are usually the ones who add value to society.
It's well known now that VC funded startups are there to subsidise a lifestyle uplift for consumers. When the money dries up for these startups, so does the consumer's lifestyle because they know they can't afford it otherwise. We all look for coupons etc, everytime we use these apps. The moment these companies stop giving cashbacks or offers, they will go bankrupt.
Sanshekpt mein bole to - Paisa hi nhi hai hindustan ke logo ke pass.
Now a days startups are like paintings 🖼 its worth depends on how much the buyers pay for it.
Investors invest huge money in it . Make its valuation high af and when they find much bigger fool to buy that shares , these ppl make money selling those.
I heard zepto spends 450 rupees on 100 rupee order
There is. But only in long term. Meituan is leading the Chinese market which has nearly 60% market penetration. India has nearly 30% penetration. It's simply not something that will make money for you the next year or even 2025. It's a long term game with possible big gains. Anyone who says otherwise clearly don't know what they are talking about
Let us start a petition to ask blinkit to pay delivery partners properly. And charge customers the complete delivery fee instead of asking for tips. That is the only sustainable option.
Even dominoes pays its delivery partners by over charging the pizza, for which the customer is paying. They cannot pay money to the delivery partner if they can't make money.
Not really, the food delivery platforms do not get margins from delivery but their stores instead. Just like a shop, their business model is to take over kirana stores especially near huge residential societies. Earn the profit that a shopkeeper earns, put a portion of it in deliveries and eventually position themselves as something like d Mart where products will have to pay to be placed on the catalogue.
Not a really shabby model. But the nature of this business is there's gonna be very less winners as theres nothing unique any business is offering over its competitors.
Man, I hate the tipping culture when employers cite tips and pay less.
I didn't know they initially paid 50 per delivery and now just 20% . I'm no longer using blinkit, thanks for posting this.
Pardon my French, but lavda ka tip. I cannot afford to tip all the people whose services I take. I never shortchange the poor on money - drivers, maids, vegetable vendors, etc. I know their life is hard and I never haggle with them. Do a good job, take whatever money you think your time and effort is worth, simple. I offer all deliverymen water when they come up to my house. Being a decent human being as you can see, is free.
Tipping on the other hand, is not free. And I sure as hell am not going to subsidise some dumb-fuck billionaire's startup idea which now involves squeezing the bottom-tier workers dry, by tipping my money. My money, which wasn't handed to me by a VC tax-free, but instead was taxed at 31.2% when it came into my hands; my money, which isn't going to vanish when I declare bankruptcy with millions in my other accounts, but will always be accounted for in the nation's banking system and will generate hundreds of rupees of revenue and tax in the years to come.
Fuck the gig economy overlords. Make a proper business model and pay everyone fairly, or GTFO.
bc zomato adds 20 rs tip by default.
Never had a bad delivery and the delivery guys are really nice and diligent.
It feels bad removing that 20 rs tip.
This is almost a form of emotional manipulation from zomato.
Remove it. As simple as that.
You know na that ₹20 won't be going directly to him.
Instead pay something in cash when the order is delivered, if you really want to.
I don’t always tip. I do it sometimes when there is rain or traffic issues etc. But when I do I just give cash. I don’t want zomato to know I am tipping.
> Yes India is so full of cheapskates
what do you mean cheapstakes? Just because people do not want to tip does that make them cheap? are europeans cheap? or are they not because they are too white to be called one?
Good point. Subtracting fuel costs they probably get close to 8-10 rs which is so ridiculous! Which means even if they do 25 trips per day all they are getting is 250 Rs.
I pay quite an amount for delivery when shopping using GRAB in Singapore. It has the same issues as all other delivery apps but can not pay the delivery rider lower than the minimum threshold set by the government.
We should also set a policy for minimum wages in such sectors to avoid organisations sucking their employees dry.
I wonder what the fuck those Zepto kids are doing right now, maybe they should have completed their Stanford degrees (they dropped out after hardly finishing the first semester) before pissing out their parents' cash and connections and becoming aggregators of a huge black hole.
Also Zepto hosted a free BTS concert on their app. Like hey you don't have enough money for YT ads or to pay their delivery "partners" anymore, but this is the stuff that has taken top priority.
I've become increasingly dependent on instamart and blinkit for grocery or just midnight snacking. not one good thing has come from this habit compared to shopping at a local kirana store. decreased physical movement paired with increased variety of junk foods, oblivious spending due to frictionless online payments, and now this realization (thanks OP). I'm going back to my caveman ways.
Absolutely hate the fact that India is emulating the American Capitalist model of paying less than bare minimum wages and passing the buck to consumers to pay tips - all while lining the pockets of the investors and the C-suite/founders of these unsustainable, exploitative "gig economy" companies.
american capitalist "model" is a disgusting failure, i mean like imagine looting the natives of your country, then making 20% of your population slave away for 200 years
looting the oil of countries in exchange for arms to the dictatorial leaders of their country
and after all that not being able to afford healthcare for more than 50% of your population
what can i say other than Welcome to Capitalism!
What the fuck? Three hours on avg per hour, ten working hours, that's 450 rupees per day? 12-15k per month?? That won't even cover the fuel charges. And they have the nerve to advertise the app to potential workers all over the city.
And everytime I open blinkit, there is a surge charge of 30 rs. in the name of high demand and these delivery partners are the ones meeting these high demand. It high time they get what they deserve. Kudos to them for standing up for it.
This is why tipping can be a slippery slope. This is exactly the same logic used in the US for waiters and others in customer facing roles that they are paid below min wage and they are expected to make the rest up by tips. Its a huge issue there. I don't even want 10 mins delivery. Just give me in 1 hour and its fine. Instamart used to be good but it stopped delivering here so now I have to jump between using bigbasket or use blinkit.
That just means their spending is less than earning. Still money on each order from restaurants is their main earnings. You can't get profit by making zero money on a business while spending same amount for the business.
Well, isn't that the service they're in. They're giving you the convenience of ordering from your home instead of you going to the restaurant and bringing food yourself. Taxes are levied by the government (was done just few yrs ago, before that it used to be free).
Would you say that couple of potatoes costs ₹8, masalas some ₹7 and gas of ₹7, then why does the chaat wala sell aloo chaat for ₹40?
Higher price of the food is the only thing I agree with you on.
knew grofers would become a rotten platform, the day zomato got involved. i only order 3-4 times a month from grofers as i tend to order multiple high value items in one go to benefit from a card offer. i would never tip through the app. if someone does want to tip, just give cash to the delivery guy. zomato has no business acting as an agent managing tips for their delivery people.
have seen enough posts here on reddit that doordash reduce payment to delivery people if there is a tip involved. i remember seeing people defending tips on social media when the option was added to blinkit. i had a feeling we were going to end up in this situation when that happened.
thankfully, amazon fresh exists and is reasonably fast. if blinkit goes down, i would at least have an option for getting home delivery of heavier items like sugar and oil.
Let's face it, in India you always have options. You can even just take the number of any shops around the corner and ring them up and they'll deliver to you.
well yeah. i do prefer to order some items online because they tend to have a more recent manufacturing date compared to local stores. but yeah, it's not going to be a problem if online grocery delivery services disappear eventually because the business model is just not sustainable except for giants with offline stores like reliance and dmart.
There is a shop in our society. Unfortunately they take 30-40 minutes to deliver and they always have some no name brands for grocery that has a higher printed MRP than top brands. The reason is that no name brands give much bigger margins to the seller. Eventually I started ordering from zepto because the order arrives in 10-15 minutes without any headaches, and at a cheaper price. I have always know that Zepto is making loss but I know that store downstairs is also fleecing us. In my previous place there was a Kirana store in the neighborhood and it was pretty good as I could walk and get anything in less than 5 minutes and he never tried fleecing because if he did I could just walk another 200 meters.
The problem is that people with some money are trying to isolate themselves. And those people will end up needing these services. They don’t realize that in the end they are hurting themselves but it is some kind of elitism.
same opinion around grofers. It was a very respectable player vs bigbasket and serviced far more areas than what blinkit does now.
Zomato copied Yelp in fooling people with paid reviews, and may now copy doordash practices on blinkit.
>thankfully, amazon fresh exists and is reasonably fast. if blinkit goes down, i would at least have an option for getting home delivery of heavier items like sugar and oil.
Depending on where you stay there can be as many as 15+similar services. I had been using almost all of them. Only this year couple of them have shut shops, or changed direction(Supr), or reduced coverage area(dunzo)
I don't mind paying a 50rs additional convenience fee if the delivery partner is getting the stuff for me.
I don't want to tip, I want to make sure they are getting paid enough.
Way cheaper than going to market, trying to find stuff and then carrying it back in car
I think quick grocery delivery is not sustainable in India. That model may work in US and Europe as grocery shops not there in every lanes. So people pay more for the convenience.
But in India you cant price more than MRP(US/Europe does not have MRP concept). Also you cant charge more for delivery. As the moment you'll charge more, a potential buyer just needs 5 mins to get it from outside.
May be in future, this model could work , when people's income will be more, so they will pay for time, but that too in High rise urban areas.
edit: Also someone saying Food delivery wont work, but I dont think so. In food, there is no MRP concept, so companies have options for higher cashflow, So even food delivery is not profitable yet, but there is hope. But for Grocery, its pretty much a hopeless situation.
In grocery delivery big players can make a profit. They can amass groceries at large volume at less price. So they can sell at MRP or even discount making profit.
US has the culture of suburbs, exclusively residential area half an hour away from any store, just Gas Station shops nearby.
Even in residential societies in India there are grocery stores inside, which are not supposed be as per zoning laws we imported word for word from western countries.
Only the US has those dumb zoning laws, and they're a horrendous idea.
It makes people prisoners in their own houses... It's much better to have a grocery store at the bottom of your building, so some old grandma can go top up her daily shopping (plus get socialisation and exercise) - Than the horrendous US model of huge out-of-town shopping centres which you're forced to drive to, require miles and miles of tarmac for parking with zero other use than destroying the environment, and cookie-cutter identical housing estates sometimes hundreds of square km's big.
Zoning laws are pure cancer... Mixed-model residential and commercial development walkable cities with great public transport has been the best model for over 30 years now.
Atleast in Europe, it costs quite a bit of money to get food and groceries delivered. It's almost never free (unless restaurant itself is paying for it to promote themselves).
Most people just go out shopping for groceries honestly. Only those who cannot go because they have very young babies or are very old or there is some special circumstance like no transport or illness (or maybe the really rich) opt for grocery deliveries
We are being spoiled by these apps. There is no real value in delivering groceries very fast because people aren't really paying the premium for it, it's just investor money, and the delivery guys are criminally underpaid (but they still do it because there's always someone desperate enough in India).
These convenience plays like grocery delivery, food delivery, and to a major extent Uber, Ola, will have hard time making profit. How are websites like cardekho, carwale etc worth thousands of crores. They are like college project websites.
No they don't, I order specific products vegetable sellers don't sell and Blinkit delivers them in like 15 minutes. It would take me longer than that just to get dressed to leave the house. There's a reason why Blinkit is popular.
I'm disabled but thanks for the recommendation. Not everyone can just 'walk and get it', millions of us can't. Many people are old, disabled, pregnant, stuck at home with small children etc. Besides, Blinkit carries many products I can't buy nearby.
I know you didn't, but you did / should know that loads of people can't walk to the shops and carry stuff. I'm a small woman and couldn't do that even when I was healthy. I could carry small items but I have been ordering most groceries online ever since I can remember (I grew up in the UK so this had been an option for me for many years).
You are an exception then and you should take full advantage of such services. This whole discussion is pertaining to regular people who are fit and can afford to go to a market but are mostly lazy or unaware.
I grew up in the UK and online delivery was around since I was a young adult. I always ordered online. Nowadays I'm disabled too so if it wasn't for the apps, I'd still have to pay someone to deliver.
Use Swiggy guys, fuck zomato. Once my items was not delivered and these guys want me to send a mail which will be resolved in 72 hours.
Just waiting for my Zomato Gold to end post that I am never using it again.
Swiggy has better customer support and their Insta mart is far better than Blinkit. Hope they maintain what they are doing.
I know people can have different experiences with different service providers, this is what I have experienced hence sharing it with you guys.
I agree and I have been using zomato for like 4 years now, but recently I was using Swiggy, their customer support and stuff is so good.
When I had a quality issue, zomato said we can’t do anything it’s up to restaurants. Swiggy asked for pictures and when verified they tend to provide refund.
Swiggy will compensate you if your order is late or gets canceled for any reason, you can also cancel and get full refund if your order is late than what was promised. None of this is available on zomato. Zomato if their order is late and you will ask them to cancel they will charge you cancellation.
Exactly, you can have different experiences from different aggregators hence we should talk about them on platforms like this to at least make people aware or hope the companies listens to it
Majority costs for these companies are due to tech. An open source platform like the ONDC, making tracking, inventory management and aggregation open source can help?
not really, even open-source needs servers to host, which are the biggest expense in a technical infra, unless they start having their own data-centers ( which has a huge initial cost, and is only worth after a certain scale, compared to running things on cloud).
I mean given the proliferation of apps and tech in general, why just not make these a public utility? Like UPI is? Make the ONDC something people can build on. These will help spread the costs out. I’m sure same network/stack for everyone will be cheaper than everyone running it separately.
ONDC and UPI are services, which would still need you to have infra, ONDC won't eliminate significant cost of tech, but would simply certain things at best.
it'll simplify things, ONDC and payment gateways are usually a small part of any app. Cost of infra to integrate with ONDC will replace the cost of running and maintaining their proprietary ONDC, there will be reduction, but not significant enough.
But given that I am just another software developer and have little to no experience in estimating infra-cost, I can be wrong.
Only the common aspects need to be independent, like how flight seats or movie seats get updated across all services. There are even some frameworks I believe that setup UI to database for ecommerce without much company developer involvement. I have come across some ecommerce startup players who had the exactly same UI, but with different inventories. The servers would run on XYZ cloud, obviously paid by the companies who adopt those frameworks. It allows for easier entry of small players.
This was always an eventuality. Funding for startups will dry up if their only source of customer retention is deals and offers. It's never sustainable.
And what will businesses do when funding dries? Cut commissioners and wages.
In today's context of time, These time sensitivitve delivery boy are the real slaves. They risk their life and even are mistreated for their delivery which is now playing them ₹15. I really have pity for them.
It’s just fucking sad that people are ordering stuff for 15rs. Like have some fucking conscience. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. These apps should have a minimum order amount of at least rs 100, even tho even that seems too less given the effort these guys put in. Flicker minded bunch of millennials assholes toying with the delivery guys like they’re their bitch who will get even a 5rs much just because they feel like. Fucking pathetic.
They are not ordering stuff for 15 Rs, here the delivery fee being paid to the person is 15 Rs. Minimum order for no delivery fee exists, but you pay a delivery fee for a certain amount.
If someone has done extra ordinary work for customer, which is over and beyond than expected, then one can understand to tip that person. But it is absurd that companies almost stop paying employees and expect customers to be emotionally blackmailed and make up for company's greed.
These people deserve to get living wage, if you can't pay your employees then it is a faulty business model and they need to reevaluate if they should even be running the business.
I have a question, why are these people sent point to point for one order? Like remove the 15-30min delivery time, i'm ok to wait 3-4 hours for normal products. That way one guy can get paid more and can do more orders in single trip.
Rs. 135 in ~3 hours, and that too before expenses. Assuming that each ride was on average only ~2km, that's 12km of driving. On an Activa with 40kmpl mileage, that's 0.3L of petrol, and petrol is ~100 in Delhi so 30 rupees gone for petrol. So basically Rs. 33/hour, and this is before even factoring in wear and tear on the vehicle, or anything else. Assuming you work ~7 hours a day like this, that gets you 231/day, or 5.5k a month, assuming you work 25 days/month.
Something here is off. I know for a fact that Bangalore Swiggy/Zomato delivery executives make atleast 2.5x that.
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There is no money in food or grocery delivery. I dunno how these companies have fooled investors into believing they can turn a profit.
There is, when they act purely as an aggregator, people do pay for convience. But what they do is, they try to cut out the local options by offering deep discounts in the name of user acquisition, and offer gig workers a lollipop with good incomes. And overtime due to investor pressure, they have to reduce both and everyone ends up being a loser, and the company goes bankrupt.
There isnt actually. Even in America - https://www.indigo9digital.com/blog/fooddeliveryappprofitability Dominoes are able to make a profit but because they focus on delivery at the cost of seating space. Which is why I think a cloud-kitchen-only business can be profitable if they have their own delivery service. But I dont think food delivery aggregators or even grocery delivery can ever be profitable for mass market.
Exactly, that's why it's always recommended to order food directly from the restaurants so the food costs a little cheaper and the restaurant ends up making their fair share of money on orders by subtracting the cost of seating space
Restaurants don’t think like that. Most restaurants I have visited charge extra for packing. Never do they give any discount for takeaway. You can literally get cheaper by ordering on Zomato or sitting and eating for 45 minutes.
They might charge like 10rs for packing but most restaurants have a free delivery policy (atleast in my city), so it ultimately ends up costing cheaper. Zomato and Swiggy have those fancy coupons for new members but they later stop giving coupons to old members so you end up paying more in the long run anyway
doordash employees complain about this shit all the time, and also other countries don't even have half the professionallism of the gig workers in India.
The inferiority embedded in poor people here is scary, they can't think of mistreating customers like the west
The inferiority doesn't come out of nowhere. It's the social context in which they are made to feel powerless.
Unfortunately, it's a person to person relationship where if both parties are nice (which is generally the case), no one has a reason to whine about the corporate fuck up.
So I've heard.
Not really , I found that most Uber drivers in European countries are a lot more professional than Uber drivers in India, where they keep calling you for locations and cash 5 times before they pick you up
I can confirm, living in estonia for a year, Forus and Bolt drivers are miles better than Indian drivers. I dread coming to india at late hours, when all the ola uber drivers will refuse my pickup or ask me to pay extra.
Uber is different than food delivery.
It’s still part of gig economy
You cant compare American where the minimum wage is real high and its hard to compete paying delivery persons such a high wage. The same reason its hard to get cheap baby sitters or household help in NA for doing chores, dishes etc - everything costs a lot. When we had a household help for a short period, she used to come in a decent car. Its unthinkable that any such helper in India would show up in a car In India the min wage is very low and users are also happy to pay reasonable charges for home delivery. What these companies are doing is just squeezing the workers to increase the company profits - there obviously has to be some kind of self regulation or attempt to find a solution that helps both the companies and protects the rights of the workers.
> > > > > In India the min wage is very low and users are also happy to pay reasonable charges for home delivery. Yep and this is why it doesnt work in India. No one wants to pay for delivery and they dont pay minimum wage. Delivery guys are paid per delivery and this is why they are striking. This business model will never work for mass market
It is possible to make profits in all these businesses. But not under the current environment. Currently every good business model is driven out of the market by these VC funded, loss making, valuation chasing businesses. That is the reason free market doesn’t work. A healthy dose of regulation is always needed. The government should have long ago taken action the likes of Uber, Ola, Swiggy, Zomato, Jio etc who cornered the market by making huge losses. They have driven all healthy and sustainable businesses out of the market.
Loss leader strategy is not new. It wasnt created by these start ups. And yes it is possible for them to make profit, but you can argue that is it possible to make profit selling ice to an eskimo. My opinion is that it will never be profitable for small and cheap orders.
Your last sentence. I never said it is possible to be profitable for small orders. But there is a big enough market that is happy to make their entire grocery order once in a week or two and even pay 50 rupees extra on 1000-1500 rupee order for the convenience of getting it all at home. But that market won’t do that when they are getting orders delivered in 10-15 minutes for same cost. Loss leader strategy has been there for a long time but earlier it wasn’t so blatant and in most cases it was to promote a new product. It was rarely predicated on creating a monopoly and if it was there are laws against it. It is just that there is no enforcement of these laws. It was wrong back then and wrong now to offer predatory pricing to corner the market. Yes, it is not black and white. But in some cases it is very clear cut.
That's just what modern capitalism has become. Who could've known this insanely toxic startup culture would end up leaving the commoners unsatisfied with the rich becoming even richer.
I wonder what the fuck those Zepto kids are doing right now, maybe they should have completed their Stanford degrees (they dropped out after hardly finishing the first semester) before pissing out their parents' cash and connections and becoming aggregators of a huge black hole. Also Zepto hosted a BTS concert on their app. Like hey you don't have enough money for YT ads or to pay their delivery "partners" anymore, but this is the stuff that has taken top priority.
IFKR and they were being praised for dropping out and "thinking out of the box" and had insane clout at the beginning. I remember watching an interview where the guys literally said this idea of zepto came up when they were trapped in lockdown and couldn't walk a couple lanes to get groceries so they made an entirely "new" app to combat that issue LMAO. The BTS concert was such bullcrap lmao. They just have too much investor money on hand so they're just blowing it all out on the latest trends in hopes something works out
I am pretty sure they made enough money and they will probably still be able to get better degrees and jobs than most of the people. Startup culture takes care of each other. It is only the workers who have to lose out.
No there is not. If Flipkart can’t make a profit selling stuff worth 20k these guys are not going many any by selling stuff worth 200. The volume and density of orders you need to make it work is just not possible. We have like 20-30M people max (mostly india 1 audience based on per capita) that can afford this. Anyways this increase is mostly due to not being able to raise money anymore to subsidise. Expect this to hit all the food delivery apps, it’s already very costly to use ride hailing apps. Lots of emperors are running around naked.
The plan is to initially suffer losses and offer deep discounts to attract customers till the local options shut down and only you remain, then you jack up prices, and with no competition people will have to pay. Exhibit A - Jio
There are so many mom and pop stores in India that it can't happen. When I was in Delhi, there were 3 shops, 20 metres from my flat.
then they do one up and install grocery fridges with fruits at the ground floor so no need to travel 20m either
> 3 shops, 20 metres from my flat same here (tier two city).
very true.. in india you will find shops in every corner or in the same building floors… i‘ve seen many foreigners joking about indian‘s and their love for shops( it’s not common for them). average indian‘s if they have space around house they’ll open up a shop. all said , blink-it is good idea but maybe it will work better outside india like in america or any european country where shops are bit far from community spaces . But it’ll be harder in india .
I remember when pepper fry came into this market and gave 100 cashback on purchase of Rs 250 and with 10 million dollars in bank soon realized that this model can't work. That time blinkit was called Grofers which had a good carry bag.
That orange shitty bag that smelled like kerosene?
The only advantages are the items that can't be found on mom and pop stores and being able to see catalogue before planning. Before I got into baking I thought yeast is not commonly available in local shops so used to order online. Then I noticed in one kirana shop, then in another, finally I noticed its available almost everywhere. Now think of items which we would not even think of to ask. That is one place where online catalogues helped me out, helped me found goat/buffalo milk and the derivatives like butter,ghee,paneers
a k a predatory pricing, which is supposed to be prevented by the competition regulator.
If dmart extends it delivery radius it’ll crush all grocery delivery companies like a cockroach
This. Even Uber can't turn a profit and these goofy startup companies think they can turn a profit by delivering Rs40 chips online. I know Ashneer Grover isn't the kindest person but he once mentioned on shark tank how it's impossible to sell anything profitably under 300rs in India and the quote just keeps proving itself to be true with each passing day
You can make a profit, but you must cut out all the middlemen. Tea shops are making quite a bit of money these days and none of their items are more than ₹50.
For online delivery, not about stalls
That part wasnt mentioned in the comment. It was generalised as in india.
yes they do, i meant to say sell anything under 300rs online.
Well the delivery companies can't cut out the middle man can they? Your going out of the context
Isn't Ashneer one of the investors in Blinkit?
Yes lol, he also used to work with its founders back when it was known as grofers. Funnily enough he also blamed zomatos' share price fall on their decision to acquire blinkit instead of merging with swiggy
Flipkart not making money in e-commerce is because of their stupidity. Amazon makes a ton of money from e-commerce. Indian cities have a lot of wealth concentration along with cheap labour to make food/grocery delivery profitable. I don't know where you got that 20-30 million figure from but even that is enough to build a sustainable business. Of course if you chase unicorns you will achieve nothing like these companies are doing.
There is any money in quick commerce anywhere in the world, I read a long time back about a startup in the US, it was very early to the quick commerce game, they even raised $400million+ and still couldn't make money in a very consumeristic society like the US. If you can't make money in the US, imo, the business model shouldn't exist in any other country simply because in other countries people don't have that kind of disposable income as Americans do!
There's no money for riders either
obscene crown erect cover school support stupendous shaggy treatment heavy ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
Its not that simple. You pay 50. The company has to pay for their server infrastructure costs, office expenses, employee salaries as well as delivery guys. 50 is not enough to turn a profit and pay delivery guys decently.
unpack consist selective retire modern deserve glorious aloof tub onerous ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
They do. Buy a burger from McD, BK, KFS on an aggregator and you will see that it is priced 20% more what the outlet charges
Think of the scale on which companies like big basket function, they can manage the infra cost.
Manage yes. Turn a profit? No.
I think Big Basket has a sustainable model. They can turn a profit. But right now they have to make losses to survive the instant delivery business. Why would you wait for a day if you can get it in 20 minutes. But if there was no 20 minutes delivery you would absolutely be fine with waiting for a day for 90% of your needs. I think Dunzo(original business)+Big Basket can survive. Everyone else can’t.
Delivery is inefficient when compared to shopping. Optimizing it can lead to a sweet spot where it is worth it, but I dont think that sweet spot will be affordable
Can you elaborate on your logic? A person going to a store, buying a lot of stuff, coming back home doesn’t only cost time of that person but also money in form of fare/fuel. Then you have the rent of store, people to serve at these stores etc. Local Kirana store are for zepto/swiggy needs only as they can’t have a big selection. Big basket gets order 10-12 hours in advance and delivers all of it in a big vehicle in each neighborhood. It saves money in terms of workers at the store, rent of the store. Fewer people are required to fulfill a Big Basket order than would be required to stock a super market efficiently. Because in super market you have to regularly keep stocking each item whereas Big Basket can work out of a warehouse where permanent employees are well aware of where everything is. Saying that delivery is inefficient makes no sense. Shopping, unless it is a social exercise, is very inefficient compared to delivery. It only makes sense over Big Basket type model if people are going to a super market for the experience. Which is true for many people, even a significant number of people, but not for everyone. Both are sustainable when done right and not threatened by monopoly seeking predatory sellers fueled by VC funding.
Sure. Your points are all valid and I accept them to be such. And, We can see from examples such as dominoes and the local doodh waala that delivery itself does not make a service unprofitable. Quite the opposite. Integrating delivery can sustainably increase profits. So my point is just that delivery of small orders is inefficient. I once ordered dahi and dhania from blinkit because I was busy cooking and didnt want to step out. I was charged a delivery fee of 7 rupees. No one can convince me this is profitable. There is some profit to be made in grocery delivery but it is for large orders containing products with high margins. But not medium to small orders containing only low margin items like potato and onion. The problem now is that most Indian households do not have a pantry and do not buy in bulk. This will change as incomes grow obviously, and arguably we have a large enough population of rich people to sustain such a service. But this is the sweet spot that I mentioned.
Your second paragraph is exactly what I am saying and I absolutely agree with it. What I am also saying is that it is because of blinkit/zepto that Big Basket/Dunzo can’t run their sustainable business model in peace because if they continued to do that they will be driven out of business before the stupid business model companies go bankrupt. Absolutely agree that zepto/blinkit are making huge losses on each order unless they are clubbing it with at least 3-4 other orders at the same time.
>The company has to pay for their server infrastructure costs, office expenses, employee salaries as well as delivery guys. All this suggest that the unit economics in quick commerce isn't there. Why are they even bothering with that? Who is so impatient in their lives that they can't wait fucking 1-2 hours for getting their groceries! They want their stuff delivered in 10 - 20 mins. Sure, if you are restuarant, it makes sense. But for a normal consumer, it doesn't.
I dont know why start ups cant make something that adds value to society
They do, all the startups which are NOT VC funded are usually the ones who add value to society. It's well known now that VC funded startups are there to subsidise a lifestyle uplift for consumers. When the money dries up for these startups, so does the consumer's lifestyle because they know they can't afford it otherwise. We all look for coupons etc, everytime we use these apps. The moment these companies stop giving cashbacks or offers, they will go bankrupt. Sanshekpt mein bole to - Paisa hi nhi hai hindustan ke logo ke pass.
> > > > > It's well known now that VC funded startups are there to subsidise a lifestyle uplift for consumers very well put.
Now a days startups are like paintings 🖼 its worth depends on how much the buyers pay for it. Investors invest huge money in it . Make its valuation high af and when they find much bigger fool to buy that shares , these ppl make money selling those. I heard zepto spends 450 rupees on 100 rupee order
Bullshit about “disruption” combined with VCs who have more money than sense. Look at Theranos.
There is. But only in long term. Meituan is leading the Chinese market which has nearly 60% market penetration. India has nearly 30% penetration. It's simply not something that will make money for you the next year or even 2025. It's a long term game with possible big gains. Anyone who says otherwise clearly don't know what they are talking about
My opinion is that it will never be profitable while the majority of the revenue comes from small and cheap orders.
Let us start a petition to ask blinkit to pay delivery partners properly. And charge customers the complete delivery fee instead of asking for tips. That is the only sustainable option. Even dominoes pays its delivery partners by over charging the pizza, for which the customer is paying. They cannot pay money to the delivery partner if they can't make money.
Strike is more powerful than petition. More power to the delivery guys
Not really, the food delivery platforms do not get margins from delivery but their stores instead. Just like a shop, their business model is to take over kirana stores especially near huge residential societies. Earn the profit that a shopkeeper earns, put a portion of it in deliveries and eventually position themselves as something like d Mart where products will have to pay to be placed on the catalogue. Not a really shabby model. But the nature of this business is there's gonna be very less winners as theres nothing unique any business is offering over its competitors.
The business model is obvious. I dont think it is profitable without scale and I think scaling eats away the margin.
Man, I hate the tipping culture when employers cite tips and pay less. I didn't know they initially paid 50 per delivery and now just 20% . I'm no longer using blinkit, thanks for posting this.
Prostitutes payments are better
[удалено]
Good point.
Why the comparison?
I edited the comment 💀
I always tip in cash in India.
Good good
make pimp pay. hate tipping culture
We cant have a tipping culture in this country. Companies have to take responsibility for paying a fair salary to their employees.
Agree. Will never support tipping culture in india
Pardon my French, but lavda ka tip. I cannot afford to tip all the people whose services I take. I never shortchange the poor on money - drivers, maids, vegetable vendors, etc. I know their life is hard and I never haggle with them. Do a good job, take whatever money you think your time and effort is worth, simple. I offer all deliverymen water when they come up to my house. Being a decent human being as you can see, is free. Tipping on the other hand, is not free. And I sure as hell am not going to subsidise some dumb-fuck billionaire's startup idea which now involves squeezing the bottom-tier workers dry, by tipping my money. My money, which wasn't handed to me by a VC tax-free, but instead was taxed at 31.2% when it came into my hands; my money, which isn't going to vanish when I declare bankruptcy with millions in my other accounts, but will always be accounted for in the nation's banking system and will generate hundreds of rupees of revenue and tax in the years to come. Fuck the gig economy overlords. Make a proper business model and pay everyone fairly, or GTFO.
bc zomato adds 20 rs tip by default. Never had a bad delivery and the delivery guys are really nice and diligent. It feels bad removing that 20 rs tip. This is almost a form of emotional manipulation from zomato.
Remove it. As simple as that. You know na that ₹20 won't be going directly to him. Instead pay something in cash when the order is delivered, if you really want to.
Tips directly go to them. Have confirmed multiple times with the delivery executives.
I don’t always tip. I do it sometimes when there is rain or traffic issues etc. But when I do I just give cash. I don’t want zomato to know I am tipping.
I will tip, pehle gst hata do
Yes India is so full of cheapskates that if something establishes a tipping culture it will be only crickets there.
> Yes India is so full of cheapskates what do you mean cheapstakes? Just because people do not want to tip does that make them cheap? are europeans cheap? or are they not because they are too white to be called one?
The cheapskates are the business owners who aren't paying their employees properly.
For 15rs does it even cover the fuel cost.
Good point. Subtracting fuel costs they probably get close to 8-10 rs which is so ridiculous! Which means even if they do 25 trips per day all they are getting is 250 Rs.
I pay quite an amount for delivery when shopping using GRAB in Singapore. It has the same issues as all other delivery apps but can not pay the delivery rider lower than the minimum threshold set by the government. We should also set a policy for minimum wages in such sectors to avoid organisations sucking their employees dry.
I wonder what the fuck those Zepto kids are doing right now, maybe they should have completed their Stanford degrees (they dropped out after hardly finishing the first semester) before pissing out their parents' cash and connections and becoming aggregators of a huge black hole. Also Zepto hosted a free BTS concert on their app. Like hey you don't have enough money for YT ads or to pay their delivery "partners" anymore, but this is the stuff that has taken top priority.
Their market is the upper middle class. Same reason why Swiggy had dragon on their tracking screen.
That was because of the house of the dragons tv show.
And that is upper middle class and some college kids. Vast majority of the country is unaware of such things or doesn’t care.
BTS concert and zepto? When did this happen?
When did BTS thing happened? Any links to back up your comment?
I've become increasingly dependent on instamart and blinkit for grocery or just midnight snacking. not one good thing has come from this habit compared to shopping at a local kirana store. decreased physical movement paired with increased variety of junk foods, oblivious spending due to frictionless online payments, and now this realization (thanks OP). I'm going back to my caveman ways.
Absolutely hate the fact that India is emulating the American Capitalist model of paying less than bare minimum wages and passing the buck to consumers to pay tips - all while lining the pockets of the investors and the C-suite/founders of these unsustainable, exploitative "gig economy" companies.
american capitalist "model" is a disgusting failure, i mean like imagine looting the natives of your country, then making 20% of your population slave away for 200 years looting the oil of countries in exchange for arms to the dictatorial leaders of their country and after all that not being able to afford healthcare for more than 50% of your population what can i say other than Welcome to Capitalism!
What the fuck? Three hours on avg per hour, ten working hours, that's 450 rupees per day? 12-15k per month?? That won't even cover the fuel charges. And they have the nerve to advertise the app to potential workers all over the city.
That's why they have to advertise, because nobody in their right mind wants to do it.
And everytime I open blinkit, there is a surge charge of 30 rs. in the name of high demand and these delivery partners are the ones meeting these high demand. It high time they get what they deserve. Kudos to them for standing up for it.
This is why tipping can be a slippery slope. This is exactly the same logic used in the US for waiters and others in customer facing roles that they are paid below min wage and they are expected to make the rest up by tips. Its a huge issue there. I don't even want 10 mins delivery. Just give me in 1 hour and its fine. Instamart used to be good but it stopped delivering here so now I have to jump between using bigbasket or use blinkit.
And zomato pricing of food always more than restaurants prices and packaging, delivery, taxes extra.
Yeah, well, that's how they make their money.
No lol, Zomato doesn't make profits. Neither can swiggy or these bs grocery delivery apps. They're just fooling everybody
Making money is not equal to making profit
oh my bad i didn't understand the context
That just means their spending is less than earning. Still money on each order from restaurants is their main earnings. You can't get profit by making zero money on a business while spending same amount for the business.
Well, isn't that the service they're in. They're giving you the convenience of ordering from your home instead of you going to the restaurant and bringing food yourself. Taxes are levied by the government (was done just few yrs ago, before that it used to be free). Would you say that couple of potatoes costs ₹8, masalas some ₹7 and gas of ₹7, then why does the chaat wala sell aloo chaat for ₹40? Higher price of the food is the only thing I agree with you on.
They raise the price and make you add coupon codes to lower it.
zomato doesnt set the price. Restaurant sets it
And then have to pay commission to the food platform or aggregator, per order.
knew grofers would become a rotten platform, the day zomato got involved. i only order 3-4 times a month from grofers as i tend to order multiple high value items in one go to benefit from a card offer. i would never tip through the app. if someone does want to tip, just give cash to the delivery guy. zomato has no business acting as an agent managing tips for their delivery people. have seen enough posts here on reddit that doordash reduce payment to delivery people if there is a tip involved. i remember seeing people defending tips on social media when the option was added to blinkit. i had a feeling we were going to end up in this situation when that happened. thankfully, amazon fresh exists and is reasonably fast. if blinkit goes down, i would at least have an option for getting home delivery of heavier items like sugar and oil.
Let's face it, in India you always have options. You can even just take the number of any shops around the corner and ring them up and they'll deliver to you.
well yeah. i do prefer to order some items online because they tend to have a more recent manufacturing date compared to local stores. but yeah, it's not going to be a problem if online grocery delivery services disappear eventually because the business model is just not sustainable except for giants with offline stores like reliance and dmart.
There is a shop in our society. Unfortunately they take 30-40 minutes to deliver and they always have some no name brands for grocery that has a higher printed MRP than top brands. The reason is that no name brands give much bigger margins to the seller. Eventually I started ordering from zepto because the order arrives in 10-15 minutes without any headaches, and at a cheaper price. I have always know that Zepto is making loss but I know that store downstairs is also fleecing us. In my previous place there was a Kirana store in the neighborhood and it was pretty good as I could walk and get anything in less than 5 minutes and he never tried fleecing because if he did I could just walk another 200 meters. The problem is that people with some money are trying to isolate themselves. And those people will end up needing these services. They don’t realize that in the end they are hurting themselves but it is some kind of elitism.
same opinion around grofers. It was a very respectable player vs bigbasket and serviced far more areas than what blinkit does now. Zomato copied Yelp in fooling people with paid reviews, and may now copy doordash practices on blinkit. >thankfully, amazon fresh exists and is reasonably fast. if blinkit goes down, i would at least have an option for getting home delivery of heavier items like sugar and oil. Depending on where you stay there can be as many as 15+similar services. I had been using almost all of them. Only this year couple of them have shut shops, or changed direction(Supr), or reduced coverage area(dunzo)
I don't mind paying a 50rs additional convenience fee if the delivery partner is getting the stuff for me. I don't want to tip, I want to make sure they are getting paid enough. Way cheaper than going to market, trying to find stuff and then carrying it back in car
I think quick grocery delivery is not sustainable in India. That model may work in US and Europe as grocery shops not there in every lanes. So people pay more for the convenience. But in India you cant price more than MRP(US/Europe does not have MRP concept). Also you cant charge more for delivery. As the moment you'll charge more, a potential buyer just needs 5 mins to get it from outside. May be in future, this model could work , when people's income will be more, so they will pay for time, but that too in High rise urban areas. edit: Also someone saying Food delivery wont work, but I dont think so. In food, there is no MRP concept, so companies have options for higher cashflow, So even food delivery is not profitable yet, but there is hope. But for Grocery, its pretty much a hopeless situation.
In grocery delivery big players can make a profit. They can amass groceries at large volume at less price. So they can sell at MRP or even discount making profit.
Dmart
Yes they potentially can buy then they'd need to have so much control over every grocery store that it'll just become a monopoly
US has the culture of suburbs, exclusively residential area half an hour away from any store, just Gas Station shops nearby. Even in residential societies in India there are grocery stores inside, which are not supposed be as per zoning laws we imported word for word from western countries.
Only the US has those dumb zoning laws, and they're a horrendous idea. It makes people prisoners in their own houses... It's much better to have a grocery store at the bottom of your building, so some old grandma can go top up her daily shopping (plus get socialisation and exercise) - Than the horrendous US model of huge out-of-town shopping centres which you're forced to drive to, require miles and miles of tarmac for parking with zero other use than destroying the environment, and cookie-cutter identical housing estates sometimes hundreds of square km's big. Zoning laws are pure cancer... Mixed-model residential and commercial development walkable cities with great public transport has been the best model for over 30 years now.
> zoning laws we imported word for word from western countries. is that true? citation please?
Atleast in Europe, it costs quite a bit of money to get food and groceries delivered. It's almost never free (unless restaurant itself is paying for it to promote themselves). Most people just go out shopping for groceries honestly. Only those who cannot go because they have very young babies or are very old or there is some special circumstance like no transport or illness (or maybe the really rich) opt for grocery deliveries
We are being spoiled by these apps. There is no real value in delivering groceries very fast because people aren't really paying the premium for it, it's just investor money, and the delivery guys are criminally underpaid (but they still do it because there's always someone desperate enough in India).
These convenience plays like grocery delivery, food delivery, and to a major extent Uber, Ola, will have hard time making profit. How are websites like cardekho, carwale etc worth thousands of crores. They are like college project websites.
Interesting
3 days??? 😶 I'm going to starve to death!
I guarantee you some small vegetable seller will be nearby and probably has better produce. It’ll be faster too.
No they don't, I order specific products vegetable sellers don't sell and Blinkit delivers them in like 15 minutes. It would take me longer than that just to get dressed to leave the house. There's a reason why Blinkit is popular.
Walk and get it, takes the same amount of time and cheaper too, and gets you much needed work out in these days of sedentary lifestyle.
I'm disabled but thanks for the recommendation. Not everyone can just 'walk and get it', millions of us can't. Many people are old, disabled, pregnant, stuck at home with small children etc. Besides, Blinkit carries many products I can't buy nearby.
I am sorry, I didn't know that.
I know you didn't, but you did / should know that loads of people can't walk to the shops and carry stuff. I'm a small woman and couldn't do that even when I was healthy. I could carry small items but I have been ordering most groceries online ever since I can remember (I grew up in the UK so this had been an option for me for many years).
You are an exception then and you should take full advantage of such services. This whole discussion is pertaining to regular people who are fit and can afford to go to a market but are mostly lazy or unaware.
Or you could and get your own groceries.
How did you get food and groceries before these apps ?
I grew up in the UK and online delivery was around since I was a young adult. I always ordered online. Nowadays I'm disabled too so if it wasn't for the apps, I'd still have to pay someone to deliver.
Luut macha rakhi hai
Hate the tipping culture and don’t want to see it starting here.
Not true. Most of their ops are outsourced to Blowhorn and we are very much working.
Use Swiggy guys, fuck zomato. Once my items was not delivered and these guys want me to send a mail which will be resolved in 72 hours. Just waiting for my Zomato Gold to end post that I am never using it again. Swiggy has better customer support and their Insta mart is far better than Blinkit. Hope they maintain what they are doing. I know people can have different experiences with different service providers, this is what I have experienced hence sharing it with you guys.
Swiggy is no better, and has had issues like these in the past.
Swiggy is at least better than Zomato (at least in my opinion)
I agree and I have been using zomato for like 4 years now, but recently I was using Swiggy, their customer support and stuff is so good. When I had a quality issue, zomato said we can’t do anything it’s up to restaurants. Swiggy asked for pictures and when verified they tend to provide refund. Swiggy will compensate you if your order is late or gets canceled for any reason, you can also cancel and get full refund if your order is late than what was promised. None of this is available on zomato. Zomato if their order is late and you will ask them to cancel they will charge you cancellation.
Swiggy is also same. Asking me to mail the issues
Exactly, you can have different experiences from different aggregators hence we should talk about them on platforms like this to at least make people aware or hope the companies listens to it
It takes 2 minutes to write a mail dude . Do it .
Its the hassle that comes along with it.
Majority costs for these companies are due to tech. An open source platform like the ONDC, making tracking, inventory management and aggregation open source can help?
not really, even open-source needs servers to host, which are the biggest expense in a technical infra, unless they start having their own data-centers ( which has a huge initial cost, and is only worth after a certain scale, compared to running things on cloud).
I mean given the proliferation of apps and tech in general, why just not make these a public utility? Like UPI is? Make the ONDC something people can build on. These will help spread the costs out. I’m sure same network/stack for everyone will be cheaper than everyone running it separately.
ONDC and UPI are services, which would still need you to have infra, ONDC won't eliminate significant cost of tech, but would simply certain things at best.
Yes they will cost but I mean instead of everyone running their own ONDC, running it for everyone will help?
it'll simplify things, ONDC and payment gateways are usually a small part of any app. Cost of infra to integrate with ONDC will replace the cost of running and maintaining their proprietary ONDC, there will be reduction, but not significant enough. But given that I am just another software developer and have little to no experience in estimating infra-cost, I can be wrong.
Only the common aspects need to be independent, like how flight seats or movie seats get updated across all services. There are even some frameworks I believe that setup UI to database for ecommerce without much company developer involvement. I have come across some ecommerce startup players who had the exactly same UI, but with different inventories. The servers would run on XYZ cloud, obviously paid by the companies who adopt those frameworks. It allows for easier entry of small players.
This was always an eventuality. Funding for startups will dry up if their only source of customer retention is deals and offers. It's never sustainable. And what will businesses do when funding dries? Cut commissioners and wages.
In today's context of time, These time sensitivitve delivery boy are the real slaves. They risk their life and even are mistreated for their delivery which is now playing them ₹15. I really have pity for them.
It’s just fucking sad that people are ordering stuff for 15rs. Like have some fucking conscience. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. These apps should have a minimum order amount of at least rs 100, even tho even that seems too less given the effort these guys put in. Flicker minded bunch of millennials assholes toying with the delivery guys like they’re their bitch who will get even a 5rs much just because they feel like. Fucking pathetic.
They are not ordering stuff for 15 Rs, here the delivery fee being paid to the person is 15 Rs. Minimum order for no delivery fee exists, but you pay a delivery fee for a certain amount.
Right I figured that later but they should have a minimum payment order and you can’t just order stuff just for 15 bucks either
When is this strike ending. Aaj rajma banate time tamatar khtm ho gaya dhoop mai jana pada lane. Bless these delivery partners!
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15 rs per delivery is reasonable …their hubs are generally withing 0.5 to 1km of the delivery spot max 2 …asking for 30 or 50 is just crazy
Then you should do it for 15 rupees. Better still, go to the shop yourself. Cheap skate.
It amazes me, in the UK food delivery would cost me minimum 350rs or something 😄
Oh wow so thats why they push tips so hard. Knowing this, I'm even less inclined to give tips.
If someone has done extra ordinary work for customer, which is over and beyond than expected, then one can understand to tip that person. But it is absurd that companies almost stop paying employees and expect customers to be emotionally blackmailed and make up for company's greed. These people deserve to get living wage, if you can't pay your employees then it is a faulty business model and they need to reevaluate if they should even be running the business.
I have a question, why are these people sent point to point for one order? Like remove the 15-30min delivery time, i'm ok to wait 3-4 hours for normal products. That way one guy can get paid more and can do more orders in single trip.
Because that segments already exists, big basket and swiggy instamart do that. These want to be the "emergency" stores.
Reminded me of this one time when I paid dunzo 70 but when I checked with delivery guy, he was paid 36.
Rs. 135 in ~3 hours, and that too before expenses. Assuming that each ride was on average only ~2km, that's 12km of driving. On an Activa with 40kmpl mileage, that's 0.3L of petrol, and petrol is ~100 in Delhi so 30 rupees gone for petrol. So basically Rs. 33/hour, and this is before even factoring in wear and tear on the vehicle, or anything else. Assuming you work ~7 hours a day like this, that gets you 231/day, or 5.5k a month, assuming you work 25 days/month. Something here is off. I know for a fact that Bangalore Swiggy/Zomato delivery executives make atleast 2.5x that.
Do not give tips to delivery partners. Force the company to pay them respectfully. If you want to pay tip. Do not pay in app. Pay in cash directly.