Swiggy, magicpin say delivery times improving as gig workers return to cities

Delivery times are improving and set to normalise soon as a large section of gig workers return to cities after the recent state elections and the peak harvest season, Swiggy and magicpin said.

Delivery times are improving and set to normalise soon as a large section of gig workers return to cities after the recent state elections and the peak harvest season, Swiggy and magicpin said. Anshoo Sharma, Founder and CEO of magicpin, told PTI the return of delivery riders is helping improve rider availability across food delivery platforms. ''The delivery riders who were away from metros to cast their vote, are now back in cities. This is helping availability of riders for food delivery, and thus improving delivery times,'' Sharma said. He added that while temporary volatility may continue, the food delivery sector is expected to see growth after a difficult period over the last few months with an overall upside of up to 20 per cent. ''To support merchants across food and other categories, magicpin has rolled out its AI assistant, Vera, which is seeing thousands of merchants adopt it everyday. Vera was launched as a response to the LPG crisis among small restaurants to manage their catalogue and prices based on real-time consumption data,'' Sharma stated. In its latest letter to shareholders, Swiggy, which also owns quick commerce brand Instamart, said the overlap of the peak harvest season and major state elections had temporarily constrained delivery partner availability across the industry. ''Currently, we are navigating a significant confluence of the peak harvest season and major state elections which has triggered a temporary but widespread migration of the gig workforce over the last four weeks that has constrained delivery partner supply across the entire industry,'' the company said. Swiggy said the disruption had led to a temporary increase in delivery timelines in some cities and prompted operational measures such as surge pricing and calibration of long-distance deliveries in high-demand areas. ''We have seen a momentary increase in our promised delivery times across some cities due to the above and have had to make some hard choices on demand throttling via surges and long-distance calibration of serviceability in high-demand areas. We expect the situation to start normalising over the next couple of weeks,'' the company added.