Zomato’s quick commerce platform, Blinkit, has reportedly witnessed over 1,000 delivery executives joining its competitors such as Swiggy Instamart, Zepto, and BB Now.
The development comes after the delivery executives held protests against Blinkit’s changed payout structure, which resulted in a slash of the fixed incentive of INR 25 to INR 15 per delivery.
According to an ET report, prior to the strike, Blinkit had over 3,000 delivery partners working in Delhi-NCR. However, within a week of the strike, about one-third of its delivery executives joined other quick commerce companies. It is difficult to pinpoint how many executives are still with Blinkit now because the company has been signing on new delivery workers in the last week, the source told ET.
The strike led by Blinkit delivery executives caused more than 100 of its dark stores to temporarily shut across Delhi, Gurugram, Noida, Greater Noida, and Faridabad. The disruption prompted quick commerce platforms such as BigBasket, Zepto, and Instamart to witness a 25-50% increase in their daily orders.
Indian stock exchanges recently sought clarification from Zomato on the financial impacts due to the protest. Zomato responded by stating that the disruption would have less than a 1% impact on the company’s revenue.
“Over the last few days, we have made changes in the delivery partner payout structure with respect to the Blinkit business to address the needs of delivery partners, improve customer experience, and reduce cancellation/order rejection frauds by a few delivery partners in the system. Such changes are done from time to time, as needed,” said Zomato in a statement.
Blinkit’s parent firm Zomato further informed that most of the dark stores have resumed operations. Earlier, ICICI Securities said that the strike could result in a 1% drop in Blinkit’s 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 its statement.
