Ahead of the summer season, quick commerce platform Blinkit has started delivery of air conditioners (ACs) in Delhi-NCR, its CEO Albinder Dhindsa announced on Saturday.
In a post on social media platform X, Dhindsa said that the company has partnered with Lloyd India for the service. “Deliveries have already started in Delhi-NCR. Coming soon to other cities,” the post read. He also shared that the installation will be available within 24 hours of delivery.
The development comes at a time when industry executives have said that the demand for ACs this year is likely to grow 25-30% to around 14-15 million this year.
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Dhindsa, in an interview earlier, said that there is a strong consumer interest in ACs but q-commerce firms face substantial logistical challenges in handling bulky and high-cost products.
“We had decided in January that ACs are not something that we’ll be able to sell,” Dhindsa said. “And come March, people were searching for ACs 15,000 times a day,” he added.
E-commerce and electronic retail chains like Croma have also ramped up their logistics, bringing the delivery time for ACs to less than a day. Croma introduced the same-day delivery for ACs and coolers across 30+ cities in February. Their competitor Vijay Sales had previously launched a similar service, offering same-day shipping for ACs and coolers on orders placed before 4 pm.
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Amazon has also managed to provide next-day and 48-hour delivery for ACs and other electronics, often bundling purchases with free installation.
Blinkit, owned by Zomato, had started quick deliveries of coolers last year. In a bid to improve the average order values on its platform, the company has also introduced delivery of Apple products, TVs, printers, laptops and a rapid-response ambulance service in Gurugram, among others.
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