“Over the last few days we have made changes in the delivery partner payout structure with respect to the Blinkit business to address the needs of delivery partners, improve customer experience and reduce cancellation/ order rejection frauds by few delivery partners in the system. Such changes are done from time to time, as needed,” the company said in a regulatory filing.
“We had to shut down some stores for a few days to ensure safety of our employees at stores and the delivery partners. Most of these stores have now resumed operations,” it said.
ET reported last week that around 100 dark stores operated by Blinkit in the Delhi-National Capital Region were shut following the quick-commerce platform’s delivery executives going on a strike protesting the change in the company’s payout structure.
Blinkit had moved the delivery executives from a fixed Rs 25 (plus Rs 7 during peak hours) per delivery fee to a Rs 15 per delivery fee, with a new distance-based component. Riders claimed that the change in the system would result in reduced earnings.
“These disruptions and changes have no material impact on the operations /financial performance of the company (meaningfully less than 1% revenue impact) and hence we believe that this event does not warrant any disclosure under regulation 30 of the SEBI (LODR) Regulations, 2015,” it added.
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On Wednesday, at 1030 IST, Zomato’s stock was trading 3.7% up from its previous close of Rs 55.34 on the BSE.In a research note earlier this week, ICICI Securities had pegged a 1% revenue impact in the April-June quarter for Blinkit as a result of the disruptions, and a 0.15% revenue loss for Zomato on a consolidated basis.
The brokerage firm had said that the tweak in the payout structure was needed for Zomato to rein in costs. “We think the change in delivery fee structure indicates Zomato’s efforts towards cost control. In our view, this would allow Blinkit to increase the delivery radius for its existing dark stores and thus improve its network coverage with limited capex spends.”
ET also reported on Tuesday that Tata-owned BigBasket, Nexus Venture Partners-backed Zepto and Swiggy’s Instamart saw a surge in orders in the Delhi-NCR after Blinkit’s delivery executives went on a strike. Daily orders for the three quick-commerce platforms have increased 25-50%, company and industry executives had said.
