Hyperlocal orders increased to over 17% in 2021, says Flipkart

Flipkart | Representative image

Flipkart’s hyperlocal orders increased from 1% in 2020 to over 17% in 2021 while it has also clocked a 25-times increase in these orders compared to last year, said the company. Hyperlocal delivery platform Flipkart Quick has seen a 2X growth in revenue and customers, respectively in 2021.

This space is seeing intense competition as Swiggy’s Instamart, Dunzo, Blinkit (formerly known as Grofers) and new entrant Zepto are currently offering delivery of groceries and essentials in 15-30 minutes.

"Today, over 1 lakh kiranas onboarded with Flipkart make 30% of the 60 million+ deliveries made per month across the country," said the company in a statement. Its grocery business will be catering to 1,800 cities by the end of this year, including Ajmer, Amritsar, Bhuj, Bokaro, Daman & Diu, Dehradun, and Kanyakumari, among others.

Among other trends for this year, Flipkart also saw 2X more brand partnerships compared to last year as part of the booming direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands.

Walmart-owned Flipkart also saw a significant growth in the B2B e-commerce categories. The fashion category saw a growth of 9.4-times and its customer base grew by 3.5X while the grocery category witnessed 1.2X growth at a gross level and a surge of 1.1X in its total customer base.

Further, it has been seen that with the fillip of COVID, Internet adoption has accelerated in smaller towns and cities. In line with this trend, Flipkart has also witnessed a 47% year-on-year (YoY) customer growth in Tier 3+ cities this past year. In Tier 3+ cities, the fashion category had the biggest YoY customer growth of 58%. Additionally, smartphones, audio devices, grooming products, fashion wearables (fashion jewellery, wallets, belts, sunglasses), men’s footwear, and household items were some of the top categories that were in high demand for shoppers in Tier 3+ cities.

The share of Indian-language users on Flipkart also increased up to 18% in Q4 2021. Smartphones account for 57% of regional language traffic, followed by fashion wearables (44%), and audio devices (39%), respectively. The company also said that its Voice Search witnessed nearly 3 million daily queries this year, with Tier 3+ cities constituting more than half of it.