India’s top e-tailers, Flipkart and Amazon have temporarily suspended their operations/ stopped taking new orders due to security concerns for their delivery partners, spokespersons of both the companies told the The New Indian Express. While Amazon has stopped taking the new orders on Tuesday and said that it will only take orders for essential products, Flipkart announced a temporary suspension of its operations all over the country.
An Amazon India spokesperson told the The New Indian Express that the firm is stockpiling essential commodities like household staples, health and hygiene products, sanitizers, baby products and medical supplies and is also working with the local authorities to enable them in delivering these products.
“We are working with the local authorities to enable us to perform these important services providing safety for our delivery associates and allowing them to make sure those priority goods can arrive safely at our customers’ homes without any disruption. We continue to make changes to our logistics, transportation, supply chain, purchasing, and seller processes to prioritise stocking and delivering priority products like household staples, health and hygiene products, sanitizers, baby formula, and medical supplies. We will inform customers about changes to our services as the situation continues to evolve,” Amazon India said.
Flipkart said that it is prioritizing the security of its delivery executives and is seeking support from the law enforcement agencies to allow it to resume the operations.
"Flipkart has temporarily suspended orders as we assess the possibilities of operating in the lockdown. We are prioritising the safety of our delivery executives and seeking the support of the local governments and police authorities to meet the needs of our customers as they stay home during this lockdown." - Rajneesh Kumar, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, Flipkart told this publication in an emailed statement
Other niche players like Big Basket, SuprDaily, Grofers although are not taking any new orders, said that they will continue their operations with a limited capacity.
“We have not increased/ decreased the number of delivery palyers. The key challenge is sometimes our delivery partners are being stopped/ even beaten up by police for no apparent reason. We seek a better coordination between central/ state government ,” Big Basket said in a statement.
Grofers , co-founder, Albinder Dhindsa earlier said that the local authorities had ordered for its warehouses to shut in `various states which led to a delay in nearly 60,000 orders. "The focus right now is to clear the backlog for the next four days. That means customers can choose to get the delivery at any time of the day and night. Grofers usually deliver between 6 AM to 10 PM,” he added.
SuprDaily said that it is currently operating at 10% of its capacity and has delisted most of the grocery items for now.
"Our staff have found it incredibly difficult to reach warehouse and delivery locations due to movement restrictions within cities. We are now operating at less than 10% capacity, due to which we unfortunately had to delist most grocery products from our app. We have taken all the necessary precautions with our warehouse and delivery staff to ensure the safety of our staff as well as our customers.” Puneet Kumar, ounder & CEO, Supr Daily said.
Milkbasket had to cancel 10,000 orders resulting in them dumping over 15,000 litres of milk and throwing over 10,000 kgs of fruits and vegetables as police inaction on the ground has stopped inter-state movement, which in turn affected the delivery of important goods across India