Flipkart, which is currently going through a bout of rough times, is now aiming to consolidate its logistics business unit — Ekart. In line with this, the company has shut down two of its recent offerings — hyperlocal delivery and C2C (customer-to-customer) service.
The company’s customer-to-customer documents and parcel delivery service was launched in May last year. Also, in March last year, it was experimenting with their hyperlocal delivery model in Bengaluru. Ekart has now suspended both services and says that the move is aimed at “consolidating the service offerings of Ekart, to sharpen its focus on its core business model.”
In an email response to Economic Times, the company said:
Beginning February 5, Ekart no longer operates its customer-to-customer courier service started in May 2016, that gave people the option of having documents and parcels packed by Ekart’s delivery boys and shipped to end-addresses.
Ekart Logistics will continue its core e-commerce delivery offerings, including third-party logistics service to the likes of other e-commerce competitors — Paytm and ShopClues. Along with that, it will also continue to provide warehousing and fulfillment facilities to its clients.
This change to the company’s business model comes after its head Saikiran Krishnamurthy left the company last month and Nitin Seth took over the role, in addition to his responsibilities as the chief operating officer.
The logistics service provider is claimed to be processing around 30,000-40,000 orders per day for third-party businesses, excluding the volumes generated by Flipkart and Flipkart-owned fashion portal Myntra. The logistics brand was acquired by Flipkart under a company called Instakart Services in 2015 from WS retail, which was the primary seller on the platform at that time.
