A breathless scramble: Inside the world of superfast groceries

Siddharth.Tiwari
Gurgaon: In a tin shed building full of restless but invisible customers, data, AI and a group of pickers are locked in a frenetic dance choreographed to the thinnest limit of human patience that the delivery ecosystem has set as its new benchmark — to reach homes in 10 minutes.
Items get picked up and packed in the blink of an eye in this new-age version of the kirana store, called a “dark store” as it only serves online customers. There’s a method to this breathless pace. From coded shelves — items ordered most are within fastest reach — an order for washing powder, coffee, floor cleaner, digestive biscuits, cola, yogurt, milk and chocolate bars lands at the billing counter in under a minute. Milk and vegetables, most often ordered, are closest to checkout. In the IPL season, cola and chips were kept together on shelves.