Grofers Founder Defends 10-Minute Grocery Delivery; Say It’s Safe For Delivery Partners

Grofers’ founder Albinder Dhindsa recently released a statement in response to the criticism that his company had been receiving for delivering groceries in 10 minutes. The online grocery delivery service was being accused online by several quarters for “exploiting” their workforce, who are expected to deliver orders within 10 minutes of being placed online.

According to the statement, the 10-minute grocery delivery is possible by Grofers since the company has partner stores located within two kilometers of their customers. Also, their in-store planning has been more efficient such that the staff is able to pack most orders under 2.5 minutes.

Additionally, as per the same statement, the company has seen zero driver accidents since it launched the 10 minute delivery feature two months ago. 

The criticism began after a social media user tweeted that his order from Grofers was delivered in 13 minutes. To which, Albinder Dhindsa said, “That’s 3 minutes too long. We will work harder in the future.” The social media user’s tweet has been deleted since.

Amid the barrage of criticisms, Dhindsa also received support on social media – a senior official of Zomato being one among them.

“Just because something gets done fast, doesn’t mean it is done at subpar quality – or is done by compromising on security. Fast delivery = riskier driving, assumes a zero sum game. There are ways to make things faster and safer. One just needs to get out of the zero sum game mindset,” tweeted Pradyot Ghate, Zomato vice president product and payments.

Apart from Grofers, even Swiggy’s Instamart grocery started grocery delivery in 15-30 minutes. In fact, both the companies launched their features around the same time. Swiggy has now expanded its Instamart service to Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and Noida, besides Bengaluru and Gurugram. 

As per a RedSeer report, the Quick Commerce (Q-Commerce) market in India is expected to reach $5 Bn by 2025 from the current $0.3 Bn. In the segment, Grofers will compete against Dunzo, Swiggy Instamart, among others. In the egrocery segment Grofers locks its horns with Tata Digital backed BigBasket.

Amongst all the news during this busy month of August for Grofers, Zomato has acquired 9.16% stake in it for  INR  518.2 Cr. Grofers allotted  3,248 preference shares and 1 equity share to Zomato.