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New year celebrations, at home & out: Online delivery rides on, mostly untouched by stir
Quick commerce and food delivery operations remained largely unaffected across the country until evening on December 31, multiple platforms and restaurants said, despite labour unions claiming that around 210,000 gig workers went on flash strike on New Year's Eve.
A section of delivery riders led by the Indian Federation of App-Based Transport Workers and the Telangana Gig and Platform Workers Union went on strike on December 25 and 31, demanding better pay, safer working conditions and social security benefits. The unions have also called for a ban on 10-minute deliveries.
“We saw around 99% uptime on both Zomato and Swiggy throughout the day,” Sagar Daryani, founder and chief executive of quick-service restaurant (QSR) Wow Momo said around 7.30 pm. “We had positive same-store sales growth as of 7 pm compared to December 31 last year. Dining in has grown slightly better than delivery till now but expecting a lot of orders from now till early hours of January 1,” he added.
At around 7 pm, Rohit Kapoor, Swiggy's CEO for food marketplace, wrote on X that the platform was witnessing an uptick in demand for cakes, pizzas and biryanis.
New Year's Eve is typically the busiest day for quick commerce and food delivery companies, which have posted record orders in the past years. They engage a huge number of gig workers. While the quick commerce segment had around half a million monthly active delivery partners in November, Swiggy and Zomato's food delivery business employed 550,000-690,000 gig workers in the July- September quarter. These companies set up war rooms on December 31 to ensure their systems are online to handle increased demand load.
ETtech
Niraj Bora, cofounder and CEO of QSR brand Cheesiano Pizza, said numbers remained tempered until evening, but began picking up later as customers started ordering.
“We have seen a 20% year-on-year drop in orders on food delivery apps until late afternoon. The demand should pick up after 6 pm because that's when a lot of orders are placed on New Year's Eve. It's been slowly picking up since evening,” said Bora.
For cloud kitchen Tadka Rani, which has a presence in the National Capital Region, cofounder Gagandeep Singh Sapra said demand has been fairly normal for a year-end day since morning.
“New Year's Eve once again surprises us with orders beyond essentials as Indian consumers turn to quick commerce platforms for every kind of need,” said Amitesh Jha, CEO of Swiggy's Instamart quick commerce service. Categories such as party supplies, gifting essentials, snacks and beverages, beauty, personal care, and grooming, and viral items such as grapes are seeing high growth on the platform, he said.
A Gurgaon-based quick commerce executive said demand on the platform became strong as the evening set in. “Orders for party supplies such as cocktail mixers, disposable glasses and plates, snacks, beverages and ice creams have been surging since 7 pm. Customers are also ordering ready-to-cook items in heavy numbers,” the executive said.
Eternal, which runs Zomato and Blinkit platforms, did not respond to ET's queries. Quick commerce platforms Zepto, Bigbasket, Amazon Now and Flipkart Minutes also did not comment.
Gig worker demand
Multiple delivery partners in Bengaluru said they are getting additional incentives for December 31.
“Demand has been higher than usual for us. Until 7 pm, I have done 32 orders and we are getting Rs 25 extra per order today,” a gig worker said.
Meanwhile, Telangana Gig and Platform Workers Union president Shaik Salauddin called for the removal of the 10-minute delivery model.
“Our demands are clear. We want the removal of the 10-minute delivery model since it's leading to accidents, injuries and mental stress,” Salauddin told ET on Wednesday. “We are ready to conduct discussions with the companies, but they haven't reached out to us yet. We want the government to take necessary steps for the welfare of gig workers.”
Several politicians backed the gig worker strikes. Aam Aadmi Party's Raghav Chadha met protesting workers in New Delhi's Old Rajinder Nagar locality Wednesday evening, while RJD MP Manoj Kumar Jha wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his intervention in the matter and calling for better working conditions for gig workers.
To offset the operational disruptions of the strike, quick commerce platforms such as Instamart, Blinkit, Flipkart Minutes, Zepto and Amazon Now had started pushing for the sales of party items, decorations, snacks and more a day after Christmas.
ET reported on Wednesday that anticipating an impact of the strikes, platforms have offered higher incentives, better earning opportunities and possibility of earning prizes if the delivery staff work on December 31 and January 1, and fulfil a certain number of orders.
“Platforms like Zomato and Swiggy are offering unheard of incentives to delivery partners for December 31,” an industry executive said.
Zomato was offering delivery partners pay-outs of Rs 120-150 per order during the peak hours between 6pm and 12am on December 31, while Swiggy was offering as much as Rs 180 on every order, people in the know said.
Source: EconomicTimes
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