Nationwide Lockdown: On the 24th of March, Prime Minister Modi declared a nationwide lockdown to break the spreading chain of coronavirus. After the announcement, online sellers Flipkart, Amazon, Big Basket, Grofers were in a dilemma that they should keep delivering essential goods or not.
They started cancelling orders as they were not able to deliver them. They all temporarily suspended their sites.
On the 25th of April, a meeting held among home secretary and e-commerce firms. The conclusion of the meeting was, all the firms will start delivering essential goods to homes.
Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy says,” We are grateful for the clarification provided by the government and local state authorities on the functioning of e-commerce during the lockdown. We are resuming our grocery services today. India, we are committed to serving you at this time 🙏 Thank you for your trust.”
However, Flipkart site was not up at the time of writing this news.
We are grateful for the clarification provided by the government and local state authorities on the functioning of e-commerce during the lockdown. We are resuming our grocery services today.
India, we are committed to serving you at this time 🙏 Thank you for your trust— Kalyan Krishnamurthy (@_Kalyan_K) March 25, 2020
Grofers Tweets that they start accepting orders for essential goods.
We will start accepting orders and delivering your essential groceries at the earliest. Local authorities are helping us in restarting our operations. We thank you for your patience and look forward to serving you soon.
— Grofers (@Grofers) March 25, 2020
Gurugram Police also said in a tweet that they are cooperating with the online retailers to deliver essential goods. Gurugram police mentioned all allowed firms in that tweet.
All officers of Gurugram Police have been directed that following online delivery services @zomato @flipkart @amazon @bluedart @wow_express @swiggy @groffers @bigbasket @milkbasket @dunzo @bigbazzar @Iffco Tokyo goods shall be allowed to operate.
— Gurugram Police (@gurgaonpolice) March 25, 2020
Big Basket shared operational sites for delivering essential goods in a tweet.
Dear Customer,
We’ve been working hard to ensure that we are able to serve you over the next few weeks. Here’s an update on the status of our operations, by city (as on the evening of 25th March.)
Thanks for choosing bigbasket. Stay Safe. pic.twitter.com/Fy48IntXA2
— bigbasket (@bigbasket_com) March 25, 2020
The Center advised all the states to allow e-commerce firms to deliver essential goods. An offline supermarket chain, BigBazaar starts doorstep delivery from their stores. Big Bazaar will start delivering goods in Mumbai, Noida, Gaziabad, Delhi, Ranchi, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Hariyana, Gujarat, and Rajasthan. It has shared different telephone numbers for different areas to make orders.
