Swiggy Expands Grocery Delivery; Goes After Dunzo With Swiggy Genie

Bengaluru-headquartered foodtech unicorn Swiggy has now expanded its grocery delivery operations to over 125 cities. The company said that service is being fulfilled through neighbourhood stores and distribution centres of large brands.

The company said it is enabling on-demand procurement and delivery of essentials to the customer doorsteps. Through the ‘Grocery’ category in the app, consumers can directly view available stores in their locality, add items to their cart for payment and opt for ‘No-contact’ delivery on prepaid orders.

The company also said that it has revamped its offering ‘Swiggy Go’ by launching a hyperlocal delivery service ‘Genie’ in over 15 cities.

For grocery delivery, Swiggy said it has partnered with several national brands and retailers such as HUL, P&G, Godrej, Dabur, Marico, Vishal Mega Mart, Adani Wilmers, Cipla and many other city-specific stores to supply branded essential products and food items.

“While the grocery and essentials category has always been a part of our long-term strategy of delivering hyperlocal convenience, we have enabled faster ramp up for the benefit of our consumers. Extending our hyperlocal delivery offering will unlock a new dimension of convenience and safety for our consumers as well as earnings for our Delivery Partners during these extraordinary times,” said Vivek Sunder, COO, Swiggy.

Swiggy Genie goes directly after Dunzo with pick-up and drop-off of items or parcels from anywhere within the city. This includes instant pick up and drops service to send packages across the city or purchase essentials from a particular store. However, this service is limited to delivering essentials including over-the-counter medicines to the consumers during the lockdown period.

Through Grocery and Genie, Swiggy said it aims to address the pain points of not just the consumers but also retailers and delivery partners for whom the upgraded services will act as a channel to drive additional revenues.

Swiggy Stores, launched in February 2019, gives the user an option to go through the menu of a listed store and buy according to the need. On the other hand, users on Swiggy Genie can order products from any store by listing the store name and the products they want. The company had launched Swiggy Go, in September last year, after acquiring hyperlocal delivery startup Supr Daily.

Through both Stores and Genie, Swiggy is putting itself in direct competition with hyperlocal delivery platform Dunzo. While Dunzo had welcomed Swiggy to its territory at the time of Swiggy Go’s launch, as the pandemic-led lockdown leads to greater customer traction for Dunzo, Swiggy’s entry is definitely seen as an interesting move.

Bengaluru-based BigBasket and Gurugram-based Grofers are the leading grocery delivery platforms in India. While ecommerce players such as Flipkart and Amazon are currently strengthening their position, some companies like Shopclues are now making an entry in this segment.

Additionally, Swiggy’s food delivery rival Zomato has launched Zomato Market service to deliver essential items amid lockdown. Besides solving the delivery woes, the entry of Swiggy and Zomato in the grocery delivery segment will also provide employment opportunities to the employees as the number of food orders have dropped significantly.