Monsoon showers push e-comm orders up, raise partner payouts

New Delhi: E-commerce marketplaces and quick commerce platforms are reaping the gains of heavy monsoon rains this year with many consumers preferring to stay in the comfort of their homes while purchasing new products.

With monsoons stretching till September in most parts of the country, online deliveries have jumped more than 10%, resulting in a 20-30% sequential increase in weather incentives and bonuses in August across these online 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 at BigBasket.

Besides raincoats, 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.