E-commerce marketplaces & quick commerce platforms reap gains from heavy monsoon rains

E-commerce marketplaces and quick commerce platforms are reaping the gains of heavy monsoon rains this year with many consumers taking to online ordering as they either relax or work from home.

With monsoons stretching till September in most parts of the country, online deliveries have risen more than 10%, driving a 20-30% sequential increase in weather incentives and bonuses in August across platforms, said companies and logistics partners. This marks a shift from earlier periods when online orders were comparatively higher in July, considered the wettest month of the year.

Tata-owned BigBasket is seeing a 12–15% surge in orders for August across key cities in northwest India, including Mumbai and Delhi NCR.

“Customers are preferring to stay safe indoors during the heavy monsoon rains (leading to more deliveries in August),” said Aashutosh Taparia, national head, Last Mile and Logistics Department (LMD) at BigBasket.

Besides raincoats, estimated time of arrival (ETA), and routing system, BigBasket is offering weather-linked incentives to riders. “These incentives scale with rainfall intensity, ensuring riders are fairly compensated for their additional efforts,” he said.

“Even as costs rise, we do not pass surge charges to customers during rains as a 'Rain Surge' but still compensate our riders for their extra hardship,” noted Taparia.

Walmart-owned Flipkart is also having a similar experience. “For example, during the monsoon week, the order spike in Delhi and Mumbai has been recorded at 1.15X. Similarly, in Jaipur and Lucknow, the demand has risen around 1.3X,” a Flipkart spokesperson said in an emailed response to ET’s query.

Demand is mostly led by professionals forced to work from home during extreme weather conditions, while many avoided stepping out in the massive traffic and waterlogged roads.

“This year, order volumes are already up by around 10%, and delivery partners are earning 15–20% more due to weather-linked incentives and performance bonuses,” said Balasubramanian A, senior vice president, Teamlease Services.

This August, Zippee, a logistics provider to the quick-commerce industry, saw quick-commerce demand climb to 1,200–1,300 orders per day from 1,000 orders.

“Every time it rains like this, two things happen—One, people stop stepping out. Two, they start ordering like crazy,” said Angad Singh of the founding team of Zippee.

"With the kind of downpour we’ve seen in Mumbai and northwest India this season, delivery demand has naturally shot up—by nearly 30% for us,” said Swarup Bose, founder and CEO at Celcius Logistics, a logistics provider for the e-commerce industry.

Bose added that Celcius is expanding its fleet and scaling up its last-mile workforce to keep pace with rising demand.

Randstad, which provides manpower to e-commerce and quick-commerce firms, is also witnessing a surge in delivery demand. Order volumes rose by nearly 10% across metros and Tier-1 cities this monsoon over the summer months.

“For delivery executives, this translates into a 15–20% increase in earnings, as e-commerce and quick-commerce platforms step up to manage higher customer reliance during the rains,” said Shilpa Subhaschandra, chief commercial officer, operational talent solutions, Randstad India.

Aditya Mishra, chief executive of CIEL HR, is also seeing almost all the quick-commerce delivery persons get incentives to deliver during the rains.

“When the roads are waterlogged, and riders are pushing through waist-deep water in plastic ponchos, it’s not about speed anymore,” said Singh.

“At Zippee, we always say, 'You can plan for 10-minute delivery, but you'd better plan harder for a 10-inch flood.” Riders usually get an extra ₹30–₹50 per order, depending on the locality and water level. “That’s not a ‘bonus’, that’s basic dignity in this weather,” said Singh.