Flipkart reportedly working towards introducing 3 hour deliveries

Heavy competition in the Indian ecommerce space is pushing companies to introduce new features that will benefit buyers. While buyers can get their orders in under a day now, Flipkart is reportedly exploring ways to further reduce delivery times to as little as three hours,Times of India reports.

Flipkart is currently working on the logistics and also evaluating the kind of products that can be a part of the initiative. Such delivery options will no doubt be a tad expensive for the buyers, but is something that is likely to be used in emergencies. According to the publication, Flipkart could introduce this service in 3-4 cities as early as July this year.

Flipkart currently offers two paid delivery options in addition to the standard delivery option. ‘In-a-day guarantee’ is available across 50 cities and for Rs 90 per item; you will get your order the next day. For Rs 140 per item however you can get your order on the same day as well. This service is only available in 10 cities across India, and requires you to place an order before 12:00PM.

For such a service to work, Flipkart’s retailers will need to increase the number of warehouses in every city and also increase the number of people helping out with the last-mile delivery. As mentioned above, the company offers same-day delivery in 10 cities across India, with 13 warehouses and over 12,000 people helping with last-mile delivery.

When Flipkart introduces this service, it will no doubt push Amazon to introduce a similar service in India as well. Last year, Amazon India reacted to Flipkart’s In-a-day guarantee, by launching its own guaranteed 1-day delivery. For Rs 99 per order, Amazon India will guarantee next-day delivery, while Rs 149 per order will guarantee same day delivery. But the ecommerce giant is capable of drastically reducing delivery times as well and recently launched 60-minute delivery option in Manhattan for its Prime users.

A recent report claimed that Amazon was working on bringing Prime to India. Similar to Flipkart First, Prime subscribers are entitled to offers including free two-day shipping with no minimum order size, unlimited streaming of movies and videos on Amazon Instant Video, and a service called Kindle Owners Lending Library, wherein Kindle owners can borrow one free e-book from Amazon’s library. It costs $99 (approximately Rs 5,946) per year and a discounted $39 (approximately Rs 2,342) for students.

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