Flipkart launches hyperlocal service starting with Bengaluru city

India’s leading ecommerce marketplace Flipkart has announced the launch of its hyperlocal service starting with the city of Bengaluru. Called Flipkart Quick, it plans to provide this service for certain categories of products.

According to a statement by the company, Flipkart Quick will enable 90-minute delivery model for more than 2,000 products in categories such as grocery, fresh, dairy, meat, mobiles, electronics accessories, stationery items, and home accessories in the first phase.

Under Flipkart Quick, consumers can choose to order in the next 90 minutes or book a 2-hour slot as per their convenience with deliveries done between 6 am to midnight.

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This hyperlocal service will debut in Bengaluru in select locations including Whitefield, Panathur, HSR Layout, BTM Layout, Banashankari, KR Puram, and Indiranagar. Flipkart plans to expand into six more cities in the next few months.

Hyperlocal as category has picked up speed especially with the spread of COVID-19 pandemic, with safety being the top priority among consumers.

On the launch of Flipkart Quick, Sandeep Karwa, Vice-President, Flipkart, said, “Today, with Flipkart Quick - our Hyperlocal capability, we have the potential to bring together the whole network of neighbourhood kirana stores onto our platform with just a click.”

According to Sandeep, hyperlocal is already well ingrained in India with consumers comfortable with the neighbourhood kirana stores. To start with, Flipkart will have a dark store model where sellers can store inventory closer to the consumer and it expects this to foster local entrepreneurship.

There is also a significant technology element involved in this hyperlocal services as it moves away from the traditional model of using pin-code system to identify delivery location. Flipkart Quick will adopt a latitude and longitude approach to enable precise results.

According to Flipkart, this technology promises to not only speed up the last mile process, but also bring more accuracy to the address mapping system, hence avoiding chances of mismatch or re-attempts.

The online marketplace said the hyperlocal delivery model aims to tap new consumers by widening the accessibility of products and enabling consumers to order products from Flipkart hubs in their location, ensuring quick delivery.