E-commerce company Flipkart on Wednesday announced same-day delivery service, beginning February, in 20 cities for products ordered across multiple categories. Customers in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhubaneshwar, Coimbatore, Chennai, Delhi, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Ludhiana, Mumbai, Nagpur, Pune, Patna, Raipur, Siliguri and Vijayawada get their products delivered before 12 midnight, if they place their orders by 1 pm, the company said.
The initiative will be scaled to other cities over the next several months, said Flipkart.
The same-day delivery will be applicable on categories viz., mobiles, fashion, beauty products, lifestyle, books, home appliances and electronics.
“To enable same day delivery, Flipkart in the past 1 year itself has invested in multiple fulfillment centers along with tech capabilities for better sortation and more throughput from its fulfillment centers 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, optimizing delivery routes, lesser pick up times from aisles, faster sortation of products ensuring that products reach customers with maximum efficiency,” Flipkart said in a statement.
The orders will be fulfilled from the nearest fulfillment center (FC) to reduce the transit time.
Hemant Badri, Senior Vice President, Head of Supply Chain, Customer Experience & ReCommerce Business, Flipkart Group, said, “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.”
Importantly, the company in October 2023 had launched its subscription programme VIP, similar to Amazon Prime, for an annual fee of Rs 499, different from its Plus programme. VIP makes same day or next day deliveries for customers in select pin codes in Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Kolkata with free shipping on all products with f Assured tag.