Blinkit Sales Impacted as Delivery Partners Continue Protest in Delhi-NCR | What We Know So Far

Thousands of Blinkit’s delivery workers are agitating across Delhi-NCR for the past week, protesting against the new payout structure which they believe will reduce their earnings potential per delivery.

Blinkit Protests Latest Update: The ongoing protests by Blinkit delivery partners in the Delhi-NCR against a revised payout structure have impacted sales of the quick commerce firm. The sales impact is going to have a bearing on Zomato’s consolidated revenues for the first quarter of the current financial year.

Blinkit Suffers Loss of Revenue

“We estimate Blinkit was operating about 370 dark stores pan-India as of Q3FY23. This implies about 25% of the dark stores are currently not operational. Given that at least 3-4 days’ sales have been lost, this implies around 1% loss in revenue from Blinkit and around 0.15% of consolidated revenue for Q1FY24 already,” ICICI Securities said as quoted by TOI.

Thousands of Blinkit’s delivery workers are agitating across Delhi-NCR for the past week, protesting against the new payout structure which they believe will reduce their earnings potential per delivery. However, it is now understood that workers will now receive a minimum fee of Rs 15 per delivery against Rs 25 earlier.

ICICI Securities further stated that 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 their existing dark stores and thus improve its network coverage with limited capex spends,” ICICI Securities said.

50 Dark Stores Shut in Delhi-NCR

In the wake of the latest developments, around 50 stores of Blinkit (formerly Grofers) are shut in Delhi-NCR as delivery workers have stopped work as part of their demand for better wages.

What Zomato Said on Pay Structure

Earlier, Zomato, in an email, said it had introduced a new structure for riders that compensates them based on their effort and was engaging with them to reopen the shut stores.

As per Blinkit’s revised payment structure, delivery partners would now receive a minimum fee of Rs 15 per delivery, instead of Rs 25 per delivery.

Customers Unable to Place Order

In the meantime, several regular customers in many parts of Delhi and NCR have not been able to place their orders on the Blinkit app for the last few days as a message greeted them saying “Due to excess demand, temporarily unavailable”.

Zomato last year bought Blinkit (earlier known as Grofers) for $550 million to jump on the bandwagon of “quick commerce”, which means delivering goods to people within a few minutes.