Traders and shopkeepers were amongst those who felt the impact of demonetization the most where their earnings turned sluggish almost overnight. The 50 million SME market in India could discover possibilities of earning more money by engaging their in house staff to make last-mile deliveries thanks to the Shadowfax platform.
Due to demand and supply gap, ensuring cost effective last mile deliveries has been a continuous challenge for local sellers. For instance, when a restaurant delivers a food order, the average cost of delivery can be as high as Rs 70 per order. Shadowfax recently acquired Nuvo Ex whose subsidiary Paketts has been a pioneer in this space. It already has 700 active merchants who deliver 30 orders per day and aims to on board 10,000 merchants in the near future.
“By working with Paketts for 5–6 hours a day it has given me a good source of income. Paketts has given me the flexibility to manage my other business as well,” said owner of Bhagyalalshmi Enterprises (Bengaluru).
The delivery app of Shadowfax uses its proprietary GPS algorithm to enable online e-commerce businesses and offline stores to find the nearest available rider. Sarthak, who heads the Operational Process and Design Team and had previously led Flipkart’s efforts to building a low cost alternate delivery model, said that “Shadowfax rider app provides a gamification experience for the last mile partner to compete for a better customer experience and excel at the same.”
Small shops can receive bulk orders through the existing seller model and can deliver to nearby residences and offices over foot and therefore save fuel as well. Since delivering items through the Shadowfax seller model becomes a potential revenue channel for these shops, the earnings not only cover up but sometimes also are more than the cost incurred in retaining a full-time employee for the same work.
“I have a hardware shop and during the day I don’t have many walk-ins. The Paketts team approached me and explained to me about their business model. I liked the idea and now I earn a good amount of money through Paketts,” said owner Nitya Sanitary & Hardware (Delhi)
Abhishek Bansal, co-founder and CEO of Shadowfax, says “Disruptive models like micro seller delivery networks would help drastically reduce the cost of last mile delivery and thus enabling the next level of growth by making logistics for small merchants affordable and accessible”
About Shadowfax:
Shadowfax is India’s largest crowdsourced delivery platform with presence in 70+ cities across India and 7000+ daily active delivery personnel. Shadowfax’s unique app enables delivery of food, grocery, pharmacy and e-commerce for businesses and helps them create customer delight using technology. With relentless focus on engineering pleasant experiences for the customers, Shadowfax envisions to become the most desirable and trustworthy delivery platform for customers.
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