- Walmart subsidiary Flipkart is now resuming e-commerce services for essential products following federal and state government assurances on the safety of delivery staff
Walmart subsidiary Flipkart is now resuming e-commerce services for essential products following federal and state government assurances on the safety of delivery staff and a less supply chain strains, according to Reuters.
Flipkart had blocked shopping on its website and mobile app on Wednesday following 21-day nationwide lockdown to counter the spread of the coronavirus announced by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
There was confusion about the mixed messages around e-commerce by Indian authorities due to the 21-day nationwide lockdown. Some deliveries were blocked by the police, which caused more confusion.
Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy had announced a partial resuming of services.
“We have been assured of the safe and smooth passage of our supply chain and delivery executives by local law enforcement authorities and are resuming our grocery and essentials services later today,” said Krishnamurthy in a blog post.
Flipkart is considered the primary rival of Amazon’s operations in India. Some of the other retail companies in India that were blocked by the lockdown include Medlife and BigBasket.
Medlife co-founder and CEO Ananth Narayanan said that a delivery worker was baton-charged by police officers while they were dispersing crowds in a New Delhi neighborhood.
“We continue to strengthen our supply chain in a safe and secure manner for our employees and consumers alike, and will leverage our efficient and robust delivery network to make products available to customers across the country and support the nation in this time of crisis through sanitized & safe supply chain,” added Krishnamurthy.
Grofers co-founder Albinder Dhindsa told Reuters that the online grocer also had a backlog of around 400,000 orders due to “hiccups” in the operations over the last few days. And now Grofers is working with local authorities to resume operations and it is planning to start accepting new orders.
