Shares of foodtech major Zomato dropped up to 7 percent intraday on August 19, even as its quick commerce subsidiary Blinkit announced a foray into printing as a service.
The quick commerce company was recently acquired by food delivery major Zomato in a Rs 4,447 crore transaction. Last year, it had pivoted from a grocery delivery company to quick deliveries of all kinds of consumables.
At 12:40pm, shares of Zomato were trading at Rs 62.80 apiece on the BSE, down 6.34 percent, while the benchmark Sensex was down 614.91 points 1.02 percent at 59,683.09.
Blinkit has started a printout service in Gurugram, charging an amount of Rs 9 per page for black and white printing and Rs 19 for coloured.
Further, a delivery fee of Rs 25 will be levied by the company for every such order.
“We intend to be an organisation which is always innovating for our customers, and being able to provide services that help them lead better lives remains at the core of the Blinkit mission. We recently launched our print pilot in a few locations (including Sector 43 and Golf Course Road) in Gurgaon,” said a Blinkit spokesperson.
“We will look forward to launching the same in more locations (including Delhi) in the near future provided we notice the service being useful for our customers,” he added.
Blinkit is currently focussing on catering to academic printing requirements from students and family document emergencies like passport, visa, rent agreements, etc. The company intends to expand its target audience for the service in the future.
“Quick commerce will help us increase the customer wallet share spent on our platform and also drive higher frequency and engagement from our customers,” Zomato CEO and co-founder Deepinder Goyal had said earlier while explaining the rationale behind the deal.
The company believes that quick commerce naturally extends across multiple categories including beauty & personal care, electronics, OTC pharma, stationery, other gift items, etc. Also, categories other than grocery help the quick commerce business make higher margins, and attain higher AOVs (Average Order Value).
“Total commerce market in India is $1.3 trillion and in the long term, we see quick commerce emerging as a significant channel of demand for customers at least in the top cities,” Goyal had remarked earlier.
Moneycontrol reported earlier this month that Zomato founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal has mooted a new identity and mission for the food delivery company, even as its stock witnessed massive sell-off pressure in the last week of July.
Goyal's note, posted on the company's Slack channel, was written last week, after shareholders approved its acquisition of Blinkit, a grocery delivery startup that was previously called Grofers.
Earlier this month, Zomato said that Blinkit delivered an estimated 8.3 million orders in July. This was a 63 percent increase from the 5.1 million orders it delivered in January, which was the first month of its operation after the pivot. During this period, its revenue rose around 239 percent to Rs 75 crore in July.
Blinkit’s annual turnover in the last three fiscals have been – Rs 263 crore in FY22, Rs 200 crore in FY21 and Rs 165 crore in FY20.
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