☀️Dispatch: ⏰Quick- Commerce, 🛒 Predicting Food Delivery Time,🥡10-min delivery, 🚲POV of a delivery executive and, 🎯Reactions
quick quick quick
(#1) ⏰Quick Commerce
Jaya Saxena during the Food on Demand conference in Las Vegas, wrote about the future of food delivery. Filled with drones, homogenous brands in every city, cloud kitchens and shorter delivery times — Is that what the future of food delivery looks like in India too?
This is what the Food On Demand attendees want to build — celebrity concepts, national brands, and anything you could think to want brought to you with no time to second-guess your choices….Is the American dream never having to go outside?
Quick-commerce essentially reduces the last mile time ( the time it takes for an order to reach the consumer). With apps like Blinkit, Zepto and, Swiggy’s Instamart, most things can be ordered through the click of a button. A convenience driven by ease of buying, and common behavioural patterns of consumers.
(#2) 🛒 Predicting Food Delivery Time at Cart with Swiggy
This conversation about food and numbers took me to a rabbit hole of data and how pertinent its value is for big food-tech. It is no surprise, of course, data points dictate how companies look at user behaviour, generate patterns and provide services. Shortening last mile time has been one of the key factors that influences the decision of the consumer.
Swiggy uses the ‘Goldilocks Value’ to evaluate the sweet spot between quick and delayed delivery times. As in the story “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” Goldilocks wants the porridge neither too hot, nor too cold - but just the right amount.
If we show too low a delivery time and we don’t deliver within it, it leads to bad customer experience. If we show too high a delivery time, the customer may not order to begin with.
The BTS of calculating time to the T seems such a hassle (in personal and professional), but to look at the detail-oriented mechanisms a company is adopting to increase efficiency makes me want to look at time a little more mindfully.
(#3) 🥡10-min delivery
I usually get vegetables/fruits from the vendor in front of my building-he sets up his stall at 7 am and is fairly quick to deliver. In between meetings, I often give him a call to get some coriander or order veggies for the day. Sometimes, he takes his own sweet time to deliver because the stall is crowded, he has other orders to fulfil or he understands the lack of urgency. He doesn’t promise a 10-min delivery. And no matter the delay - there's always some extra sprigs of kadi-patta.
But, everyone wants their groceries ASAP, right? Grofers (now BlinkIt) introduced the idea of 10-min delivery which was then adopted successfully by Zepto, Swiggy’s Instamart, and, Bigbasket’s BBNow. Through a combination of dark stores, efficient logistics, tech-powered precision and its hyperlocal expansion, this model is specifically designed for convenience and ease of ordering groceries in (and maybe a PS5).
Zomato tried to replicate the model of Q-commerce for its food delivery through a new service called ‘Zomato Instant,’ wherein it promised to deliver ‘certain dishes’ under 10-mins. The proposition was based on "finishing stations' network" warehouses that stock stuff that's frequently ordered. The move got a lot of scrutiny and took over the meme world - because what does it say if a dish ordered from a restaurant reaches the customer in 10 mins? Does it mean the delivery partners need to rush to get the food in the hands of the consumer? Or that the said order is prepared much before it was even placed? After a year of roll-out, they scrapped the service last year.
(#4) 🚲POV of a delivery executive ft.DoorDash
Andy Newman writes about social services and poverty in New York City and its environs.
This is the frictionless economy we’ve become reliant on: Tap your phone five times and a peanut-butter açaí bowl appears at your door. The only task left for human laborers is the physical transfer of goods.
Read here.
(#5) 🎯Reactions
What’s your POV on delivery apps? Tell us!
And that’s everything for this week.
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