NEW DELHI : Medicines and food were the most ordered items across the country in April, with Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru being the top cities in terms of pickup and delivery amid the covid-19 lockdown, according to the “State of logistics in lockdown’ report by Shiprocket, a tech-enabled logistics startup.
While the government had permitted the shipment of essential goods during the lockdown period, Shiprocket said that medicines (80%) and groceries (16%) were the most popular categories in terms of shipments in April. Other products that were in demand included essentials (1%), personal care (3%), supplements (0.13%) and pet care products (0.06%) .
With a sample size of 1931 sellers, the report states that metro cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru clocked the highest number of pickups and deliveries, followed by Hyderabad and Gurugram.
The report also said that 11% of the shipments containing non-essential items were stuck in transit at hubs during this period, supporting the fact that during lockdown demand for e-commerce deliveries saw an increase but order fulfilment remained an industry-wide challenge. Non-essentials were stuck also because many consumers began to cancel their orders midway due to the coronavirus threat, thereby further impacting demand, said Saahil Goel, CEO and co-founder of Shiprocket.
Since the lockdown began in March, the logistics sector has been playing a key role in ensuring minimal disruption of supply chains for businesses offering essential goods.
Pharmacies have been particularly hit.
“The business has seen a 30% hit due to the early lockdown and coronavirus situation," said Puru Dhawan, a pharmacy owner in Delhi.
Another pharmacy owner said that 70% of his business witnessed a major impact due to the current lockdown scenario. At the beginning of the lockdown period, his team wasn’t able to schedule pickups for any kind of shipment, which was a huge hit to sales
In April, 17,229 pin codes were open across India for essential goods delivery as compared to 26,000 pin codes pre-covid. The report also says that the number of sellers active during the lockdown was only 7% of those operating in the pre-covid period. Delivery partners such as Delhivery, Shadowfax, and Dunzo have been the highest contributors to shipments during this challenging period.
“Now that the government has greenlit the delivery of non-essential goods in several areas, we are looking forward to businesses picking up the pace and resuming their growth trajectories, providing a fillip to the logistics space as well," added Goel.
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