Coronavirus: Bigbasket to hire 10,000 people for warehouses, delivery

Online grocery platform Bigbasket is looking at hiring 10,000 people for its warehouses and last-mile delivery to clear pending orders quickly and meet the spike in orders on account of the nationwide lockdown.

"We are looking to hire 10,000 people for our warehouses and last-mile delivery. This hiring will happen across all 26 cities that we are present in," Bigbasket Vice President-Human Resources Tanuja Tewari told PTI.

She added that the pressure is being felt across all cities with the challenges being higher in Tier I cities.

Ecommerce companies have been struggling to deliver orders during this 21-day lockdown imposed to contain the spread of the deadly coronavirus.

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Even though the government has allowed delivery of essential goods including food, pharmaceuticals and medical equipment through ecommerce platforms, players have complained of their delivery staff being hassled by police.

With local authorities shutting down warehouses and stopping trucks from crossing state borders, ecommerce players have seen their operations getting disrupted.

The companies have resumed operations and working to complete pending orders. Some are giving people the option to cancel their orders, and are also delaying taking fresh orders to ensure the pending orders get delivered.

Another challenge facing the industry is the availability of limited staff for warehouses and logistics.

Tewari said currently, there is a shortfall of 50 percent of staff in the company's warehouses and delivery team.

The company has started taking orders in all the cities but due to capacity constraints the slots are getting filled very quickly, she added.

In a tweet, Bigbasket said it is operating at about 40 percent of its planned capacity.

"We are operational across all our cities with limited slot capacities except Kochi and Indore... We were operating at 10 percent of our capacity on March 25 and as of yesterday (April 2), we are operating at 40 percent of capacity planned," it said.

The company also has permits/passes from government authorities to ensure that its employees have safe passage for their work. It is also providing attractive salary and benefits package including health insurance to help staff at this difficult time.

On Thursday, Bigbasket partnered with ride-hailing platform Uber to deliver household essentials to customers.

(Edited by Saheli Sen Gupta)