Logistics And Support Partners Gear Up For India's Ecommerce Extravaganza During Festive Season
India's e-commerce industry has already dived into another lucrative festive season, and behind the scenes, logistics and support partners also geared up for the massive surge in demand. With the festive season in India being a crucial period for e-commerce companies, these partners play an essential role in ensuring smooth operations, timely deliveries, and customer satisfaction.
One of the biggest challenges during the festive season is the overwhelming demand for goods and services. E-commerce platforms are preparing for the influx of orders, and logistics partners are scaling up their infrastructure to match the pace. Businessworld spoke to a few logistics and support providers to know how they are keeping pace with the season.
Scaling Up Infrastructure
Warehouses are expanding their capacity, and advanced technologies are being implemented to streamline order processing. Atul Mehta, COO, Shiprocket says that this festive season, it is estimated that the Indian eCommerce opportunity would be worth USD 13 billion to Indian MSMEs. “As an eCommerce enablement platform, we are always dedicated to helping MSMEs overcome the set of challenges that come with the festive rush. Around 10 to 15 per cent of the total order volume will be attributed to first-time shoppers as SMEs from Tier 2,3 & 4 markets are expecting higher Diwali gift orders than sellers from metro cities.”
Mehta adds that this demonstrates the widespread acceptance of internet shopping and digital transactions in small towns and rural places. “This festive season, consumers have been purchasing goods at a rapid rate. Having anticipated this in August and to enable merchants to deliver on “need for speed” of consumers, we doubled our warehouse capacity to 2 million square feet, including three new cutting-edge warehouses. We have also increased the workforce at the warehouses by 50 per cent to ensure efficient order processing and fulfilment.
Our partnership with India Post has enabled MSME’s from every corner of India to distribute goods and increase their serviceability by 5 to 10 per cent.”
He also says that through the marketing automation services offered by Wigzo and Convert, Shiprocket is helping customers not only with shipping but also support them as growth partners for more sharper consumer targeting. “Additionally, we have enabled 30+ brands to go omnichannel through Omuni to ensure maximum consumer touchpoints this festive season. Additionally, we have strengthened our tech stack by launching more offerings like Shiprocket Convert, Brand Boost, Delivery Boost, Shiprocket Promise, Shiprocket Notify and Shiprocket Engage+ to simplify the process of selling online for Indian merchants,” Mehta says.
Optimising Last-Mile Delivery And Hiring Support Staff
The last mile of delivery is often the most crucial and challenging. To tackle this, logistics partners are investing in better route optimisation, real-time tracking, and improving delivery personnel's efficiency.
Sushil Rathi, Director, Allcargo Supply Chain says that operational efficiency, agile responsiveness to mobilise resources to meet the growing demand and capability to handle large order volume are the three key aspects which a company, e-commerce player or small and medium businesses look for in their logistics partners. “This year, immense success of festive sales events indicate the festive order volume will reach a new peak. So, capability and resources need to be scaled up accordingly. We have strengthened our order fulfilment, processing and delivery capabilities to efficiently manage the festive demand surge. Currently we are seeing a jump of 40 to 60 per cent in daily orders as compared to business as usual scenario. This differs zone wise, platform wise and product category wise. We leverage Gati’s strength of offering time-bound express logistics services, fulfilling the time-sensitive requirements with its widespread delivery network covering over 19,800 pin codes.”
Embracing Technology
In an increasingly digital world, technology is the backbone of logistics and support operations. Partners are adopting sophisticated software and systems to manage inventory, track shipments, and improve communication and coordination among various stakeholders in the supply chain.
Kalpit Jain, Group CEO Netcore Cloud, which is associated with brands like Myntra, Nykaa, Woodland, MakeMyTrip, ICICI Bank, and SBI, says that the festive season is every marketer's dream period, presenting the perfect opportunity to 'leverage demand, sell more, reengage dormant users, and create future market share. “Marketers are grappling with the challenges posed by the new-age customer, who is spoiled for choices and amidst a battle for mindshare. Our suite of AI-powered offerings, encompassing customer engagement, personalisation, and omni-channel orchestration, is assisting marketers in seamlessly planning and executing content-relevant experiences across their digital assets. The KPI-driven Customer Success practice collaborates with marketers to extract value by mapping the funnel from TOFU (Top of Funnel) - MOFU (Middle of Funnel) – BOFU (Bottom of Funnel) across digital assets, utilizing the platform's capabilities in audience profiling, AI-powered analytics, and generative AI-powered communication.”
Sapan Jain, CEO, Blubirch says that the festive season gets particularly busy for ecommerce players, brands and logistics partners. “The issue of invalid returns, operational inefficiency in the reverse supply chain and the heightened cost of managing returns gets further accentuated during this time on account of return volumes. We have cutting-edge AI and machine-learning based RA-PaaS — Returns Automation Platform as a Service can manage spikes in returns by processing valid returns at scale through dynamic resolution, which reduces operational timelines within the reverse supply chain, eliminates revenue leakages and quickly unlocks capital. Notably, our Validation Tool can identify invalid returns at source.”
As India's e-commerce industry continues to thrive, the role of logistics and support partners becomes increasingly critical. Their preparedness and ability to adapt to the changing landscape of the industry are fundamental in making the festive season a success for both e-commerce companies and consumers. With investments in infrastructure, technology, and sustainability, these partners are essential contributors to India's growing digital economy.
