Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru clock highest deliveries post lockdown: Shiprocket survey

Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru saw the highest number of pickups and deliveries of essential and non-essential goods, post the Covid-19 related lockdown, according to a survey by logistics technology provider Shiprocket.

Sellers in the three cities were able to overcome challenges quickly and resume services, Shiprocket said in a statement on Thursday.

While Delhi led the pickup activities with about 26% shipments, Mumbai was the top city in terms of delivery with about 8% shipments. The average delivery time intracity was found to be 1.3 days, intrastate was 2.2 days, and the interstate 3.8 days.

The survey of 26,000 sellers analyzed shipment trends in post-lockdown India in the direct-to-consumer (D2C) sector for the period from May 18 to June 30, 2020.

Read: Covid-19 pushes online sale of smartphones, apparel: Facebook, BCG report

“It was becoming increasingly challenging for our team to continue store operations during the lockdown. Since Unlock 1.0, my online clothing business has witnessed a significant increase in orders by over 40%,” Leo, owner of Vennila Clothing Company in Tamil Nadu said in the statement.

About 60% of the sellers admitted that a blend of both offline and online will continue to be the preferred demand channel, while less than 2% of sellers were not sure how the new normal will look like for them, the survey found.

“The three-month lockdown created a major disruption in the supply chain and the demand to supply ratio was not balanced with the demand increasing exponentially. Our report was based on the patterns and trends observed. Unlock 1.0 has paved the way for a new phase of logistics operations in India,” Saahil Goel, co-founder and CEO at Shiprocket said.

Other key findings, as per the statement are as follows:

• Medicines and groceries were the most shipped items during the lockdown. Post lockdown, health and beauty retail (32%), fashion apparel (28%), and electronics, automobile and accessories (18%) were the top three categories in terms of shipments in the Unlock 1 phase.
• The most popular products were anti-bacterial and anti-pollution face masks, baby shampoo, men’s t-shirts, and knitted face masks, among others.