Swiggy Will Deliver Your Grocery In 45 Minutes Via Instamart! How Will It Work?

Swiggy has rolled out its new feature, Instamart, a quick delivery service within 45 mins for grocery and household items, sources told ET. 

Read on to find out more about the Instamart…

Swiggy Ramps Up Its Operations!

Dark stores are said to be the future of the retail business post the COVID-19 pandemic as it has made businesses adopt different business strategies to weather the storm.

The food tech giant is planning on delivering upto 2,500 items via dark stores which will be available through apps.

Dark stores are storage spaces wherein the walk-in shopping option isn’t available. These stores can only deliver items to the customers when they place an order through the app. 

According to a Swiggy spokesperson, there are about 10 dark stores with an area of 1,800-2,500 sq ft in Bengaluru. These cover 85-90% catchment areas within a 5-6 km radius. The average basket size for grocery top-up business is close to Rs 400-450.

We have previously covered how this strategy was being adopted by Flipkart in its new feature ‘Flipkart Quick’.

Swiggy will begin the operations from Gurugram and will subsequently run in Bengaluru subsequently, the people with a know-how in the matter  told ET.

A Swiggy spokesperson told ET, “We are currently testing Swiggy Instamart to see how it augments our consumer promise of enabling unparalleled convenience by making grocery delivery more instant and delightful.”

“With 30-45 minutes deliveries… day and night serviceability (7 am – 12 am), a wide assortment across categories such as instant meals, snacks, ice creams, fruits and vegetables, Instamart will address the unmet grocery needs of the time-pressed, convenience-seeking urban consumer,” the spokesperson said.

Swiggy Rebranding Its Existing Feature?

This development comes at a time when doorstep delivery is cooking up a storm as the COVID-19 pandemic has gripped people with fear of stepping in crowded places.

BigBasket, Amazon, Dunzo, JioMart and many other players are also ramping up their operations in this segment. 

Swiggy was already delivering groceries for over 12 months. It operates ‘Swiggy Stores’ which lists products from nearby local stores.

Swiggy had previously launched the Urban Kirana for quick hyperlocal delivery via virtual stores in select cities. According to the sources, Urban Kirana could have been rebranded as Instamart by Swiggy. 

Although InstaMart will likely have a much tighter control over the delivery experience and product selection. The key differentiation factor will be its ability to fulfil deliveries in less than half the time it takes for existing players if the execution is successfully handled. 

The ‘dark stores’ delivery method has already been tested by BigBasket, Grofers and it will be interesting to see Swiggy moulding this business model !