Delhivery’s move to launch the network of these warehouses comes at a time when demand for quick deliveries is on the rise.
These warehouses will be available to companies on a shared basis, Barua said, adding that he does not expect the new service to “be a significant driver of revenue for us in the short or the medium term”.
In June, ET had reported that third-party logistics companies such as Delhivery were planning a foray into the quick commerce space.
In May, Barua had said that Delhivery was not looking to get into the 15-minute or ten minute delivery of groceries but would have a play in the two-hour or four-hour deliveries of certain products, which large ecommerce players will foray into.
“We will provide dark stores and we will also provide delivery services from those dark stores to the extent that ecommerce companies want to use them on a multi-tenant basis to help them make that cost variable in nature,” Barua said on Friday.
The Delhivery Chief Executive Officer also underscored that the impact of quick commerce on the broader ecommerce segment will not be major.
“Certain categories like apparel and heavy items don’t necessarily lend themselves to the quick commerce model at all. The long tail (of categories) that’s available online…our view is that the actual volume that’s at risk for ecommerce is likely to be pretty small,” he said.
Albinder Dhindsa, chief executive of quick commerce platform Blinkit, said Thursday that one of the contributors to the company’s order value growth was the shift in share from ecommerce in certain non-grocery categories.
Barua explained that through this new service – that he termed “rapid commerce” – Delhivery is aiming to address the needs of D2C brands and not quick commerce platforms. Delhivery already services Swiggy Instamart providing the company services at its mother warehouses – those that feed the smaller dark stores.
“I don’t anticipate they (Blinkit, Instamart and Zepto) will be immediate consumers of our dark store infrastructure. Our infrastructure is designed very specifically for direct-to-consumer companies, and some product lines for the larger marketplaces themselves,” he said.
“The process of creating micro fulfilment for most direct-to-consumer brands, and creating a network of standalone dark stores is going to be too expensive. The simple reason is that capacity utilisation is very difficult to manage, and you might end up with a situation where you over-inventorise the dark store at the last mile,” Barua said.
ET reported on July 31 that ecommerce enablement startup Shiprocket is also rolling out a same-city quick delivery service by aggregating hyperlocal delivery platforms such as Porter, Borzo, Shadowfax, Zypp Electric and others.
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