Blinkit Dark Stores Resume Operations In Parts Of Delhi NCR

After a five-day long strike, Blinkit dark stores have resumed operations in some parts of Delhi NCR on Monday (April 17). Reportedly, its delivery partners met Gurugram labour commissioner to resolve the pay reduction decision from Blinkit. 

It is prudent to note that on April 12th, thousands of Blinkit delivery partners went on a strike after Blinkit revised its pay structure, reducing a minimum fee from INR 25 to INR 15 per delivery.  

After this, over 100, out of 370+ Blinkit dark stores were temporarily closed across Delhi, Gurugram, Noida, Greater Noida and Faridabad. Also, Mint reported, more than 1000 delivery partners joined the protest disrupting services of Zomato’s quick commerce platform in Delhi NCR region. 

“Almost all stores are operational in NCR. We continue engaging with all delivery partners to help them understand the new pay structure,” a Blinkit spokesperson said. 

As per ICICI Securities, the five-day closure of Blinkit dark stores could lead to a 1% drop in revenue and a 0.15% fall in its consolidated revenue. 

“We estimate Blinkit has been operating 370 dark stores pan-India as of Q3FY23. It implies 25% of the dark stores are currently not operational. Given that at least 3-4 days’ sales have been lost, it implies ~1% loss in revenue from Blinkit and 0.15% of consolidated revenue in Q1 of FY24, already,” ICICI Securities said in a note on Zomato.

As per ICICI Securities analysts, the change in pay structure suggests Zomato is trying to control cost. The move will enable Blinkit to expand its delivery radius for existing dark stores and improve its network coverage with limited capex (capital expenditure) spends. 

This is not the first time gig workers went on a protest. In the past one year, foodtech platform Swiggy and quick commerce platform Dunzo faced multiple similar protests on payment structure related issues. 

For instance, Swiggy’s delivery partners protested in Kochi demanding an increase in their remuneration. While, Dunzo’s delivery partners protested over issues such as incentive structure and changes in login timings.

However, it looks like such an event of protest paved the way for Blinkit rivals including BigBasket, Zepto and Swiggy Instamart. As we reported today, BigBasket, Zepto and Instamart have witnessed a surge in their daily orders in Delhi NCR due to the five-day long protest at Blinkit.These three quick-commerce platforms have confirmed a surge ranging from 25% to 50% in daily orders on their platforms.