With the country being under lockdown for the last 21 days and now being extended till May 3, getting essential items like groceries have become the hottest commodity. As everything is closed due to lockdown, people are eating home-cooked food which has led to a sudden surge in demand for essential products such as vegetables, flour, rice, among others. The demand has become so high that it is making the online grocery delivery platforms including BigBasket or Grofers to delay orders by several days due to products running out of stock or shortage of delivery executives. However, the good news is that now the food delivery apps such as Swiggy, Zomato and Dominos have started to deliver groceries in the country.
Swiggy, Zomato and other apps delivering groceries in India
Swiggy: Swiggy doesn’t call itself a food delivery app but an on-demand delivery platform. It has been selling grocery items for a long time only in tier 1 and tier 2 cities, but the pandemic has now expanded its services in the country to cover over 125 cities. Swiggy has collaborated with various national brands and retailers including HUL, P&G, Godrej, Dabur, Marico, Cipla, Vishal Mega Mart, Adani Wilmers and more to deliver groceries through their stores and distribution centers.
To order groceries, you need to head over to the “Grocery” tab in the Swiggy app. You can directly see available stores in their locality from which you can select your store and add items to your cart for payment and opt for “no-contact” delivery on prepaid orders if you have already paid for your order. Swiggy promises delivery in two hours.
Apart from delivering groceries, Swiggy has revamped its “Swiggy Go” service as “Genie” to enable pick up and drop services to send packages in over 25 cities. At the moment, Genie is only limited to delivering essential including over-the-counter medicines during the lockdown period.
Zomato: After the announcement of the lockdown, Zomato has started delivering groceries at your doorstep under its new Zomato Market service. It has partnered with various local grocery stores, FMCG companies, and several startups to deliver groceries in over 80 cities around the country. Users can now see the list of available stores in their area and order groceries that also has the option of contact-less delivery. Zomato promises to deliver in almost an hour, however, you cannot order more than 12kgs at a time. Meanwhile, Zomato also has its food-delivery services running simultaneously.
Apart from Swiggy and Zomato, other companies including Uber, Shopclues, Flipkart, Amazon, Bigbasket, Paytm and Grofers are also accepting orders to deliver groceries to your home in selected cities. While Flipkart, Amazon, Grofers, and BigBasket were already delivering essential goods, for Shopclues, Paytm, and Dominos, you will need to wait for some extra days for the order to be successfully delivered.
