Your Tech Story

online delivery

Blinkit

From Grofers To Blinkit, Providing Instant Delivery Services For Grocery Shopping.

Leave a Comment / Story, Tech Story / By

Blinkit is an e-commerce platform for grocery shopping. Over one crore Indians use Blinkit to shop for everything from veggies and supermarket staples to electronics and emergency supplies. It is the first company to introduce the rapid delivery concept to India. It delivers over two lakhs orders every day.

About the Company

Formerly known as Grofers, Blinkit is an Indian company providing instant delivery services for grocery and other items. It is headquartered in Gurgaon. Customers of Blinkit can place online orders for groceries and other necessities using a smartphone application. The delivery persons of Blinkit then collect the ordered items from the warehouse and deliver them within 10 minutes to the customer. BY 2021, the company was fulfilling over 1.25 lakh orders every day. In India, Blinkit is presently available in over 30 cities. As of 2021, SoftBank, Tiger Global, and Sequoia Capital have invested over 630$ million in the company.

Image source: tosshub.com

History of the Company

Saurabh Kumar and Albinder Dhindsa established Blinkit as Grofers in December 2013. They teamed together to enter the supermarket delivery market after getting to know one another while working for Cambridge Systematics in the late 2000s. Their objective was to find solutions to the issues caused by the industry’s lack of organisation (both on the client and merchant ends). Before expanding to other Indian cities, the company conducted a test run in Delhi NCR. After operating as an online service that delivered groceries for seven years, Blinkit offered quick grocery delivery services in India by constructing dark storefronts throughout the country’s cities. The company claimed to have delivered over 7,000 grocery products in Gurgaon in fifteen minutes in July 2021. After completing over 20,000 under-15-minute, deliveries each day across ten cities, it offered 10-minute delivery across the top 12 cities a month later, in August 2021. In keeping with its goal to promote quick commerce, Grofers changed its name to Blinkit on December 13, 2021. To take advantage of the rapidly expanding market for speedy grocery delivery, food delivery network Zomato has agreed to purchase Blinkit for $569 million in an all-stock deal. The deal is currently underway.

Business Model

An online marketplace served as the foundation of Blinkit’s business plan. They took orders through their website or app. Blinkit uses a partnership approach to deliver the goods in less than 10 minutes for all of its business activities. To do this, it collaborates with regional companies and brands, logistics, warehousing, transaction partners, and payment solutions. As a result of the greater visibility, partner retailers received more orders; Blinkit made money by charging a commission based on a percentage of these sales. It presently offers a 10-minute delivery service through more than 250 associate retailers.

Controversies

Groceries, fresh produce, meat, stationery, bakery goods, infant care, pet care, snacks, flowers, etc., are the main items that Blinkit provides. The 10-minute delivery service offered by the business was criticised in August 2021, and delivery partner safety issues were brought up. In a tweet, CEO Albinder Dhindsa defended the quick delivery system and asserted that there had been no accidents because of this.

Founders – Albinder Dhindsa, Saurabh Kumar

Eight years ago, in 2013, Albinder Dhindsa and Saurabh Kumar co-founded Grofers. In addition to being an IIT Mumbai alumnus, Saurabh earned his MS at the University of Texas in Austin. He served as the head of operations at Rasilant Technologies before joining Grofers and was an engineer at Cambridge Systematics in New York before that. Albinder Dhindsa is currently the CEO of Blinkit. In 2005, he started working as a transportation analyst at URS Corporation after completing his education. He worked for two years before switching to Cambridge Systematics as a Senior Associate, where he met Saurabh. Dhindsa decided to leave his work in 2010 to pursue his MBA in the United States. He worked for UBS Investment Bank for three months in 2011 while living in the US. He has also served as Zomato’s Head of International Operations.

Coupang

Coupang – An e-Commerce Company That Is Recognized As The Amazon Of South Korea.

Leave a Comment / Story, Tech Story / By

Founded in July 2010, Coupang is the second largest e-commerce marketplace in South Korea. The founder of the company is Bom Kim, a Korean-American businessman who is serving as the CEO of the company presently. Coupang is often compared to Amazon in South Korea because the company has expanded very rapidly and it is known for the fastest deliveries. The company is incorporated in Delaware, United States and apart from South Korea, recently it has entered the American stock market. In 2021, the company announced that it is expanding its business in Japan and Taiwan. Some of the other offices of Coupang are located in Seattle. Los Angeles, Shanghai, Mountain View, etc.

About Coupang

Coupang is not only a famous e-commerce company in South Korea but also recognized across the world as one of the biggest companies. The company’s growth has been exponential in the past few years and in the first quarter of 2021, sales of $4.26 billion were recorded. SoftBank majorly invested in the company when it was rising during 2015 and then in 2018 and currently, the company owns one-third of Coupang. The company is trying to create a better experience for the users every day by implementing innovative technologies. Both Forbes Magazine and MIT Technology Review recognized Coupang as one of the 50 smartest companies in the world. So, starting out only a decade ago, the company is making the same lists as Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Tesla.

Coupang’s fastest delivery is what makes it the most widely used e-commerce site in South Korea. In 2019, the company introduced a new feature called Dawn Delivery which means that if a customer orders something before midnight it will get delivered by 7 am in the next day. This feature helped the company grow very fast especially during the time of pandemic as people could get emergency supplies in less than half a day’s duration. Coupang’s IPO when entering the American market became the biggest IPO of an Asian company after the Alibaba Group.

Coupang
Image source: tellimer.com

History of the Company

Back in 2010 when Coupang was established it started out as an endeavor similar to Groupon. But within the first three years, Company crossed everyone’s expectations and left most of its competitors behind in the market. It was able to attract many large investors and in 2014 raised $300 million successfully from US investors and then in 2015 and 2018 raised $3 billion from SoftBank. SoftBank, today, owns a major portion of the company while the stakeholders are Greenoaks Capital, Maverick Holdings, Rose Park Advisors, BlackRock, and Bom Kim.

After eleven years of successfully establishing one of the largest Asian e-commerce companies, Coupang has a workforce of more than 50,000. It is because of the fastest deliveries that people in South Korea uses Coupang extensively. The company claims that 99.6% of the order received are delivered within 24 hours. The company uses Rocket Delivery Network and 70% of the South Korean citizens have a Coupang logistic center within a 10-minutes distance from their home.

Is Coupang better than Amazon?

Though in South Korea, Coupang is used extensively when compared to Amazon, the former has a very small customer base. Coupang has approximately 15 million customers whereas Amazon has over 100 million prime customers across the world. But, the customer base of Coupang will steadily increase because it is launching in overseas markets. Similar to Amazon Prime membership, Coupang has also launched a membership program (Coupang Wow Rocket Membership) and nearly 32% of the total customers are paying for it. The delivery speed of Coupang is unmatchable even for Amazon especially when it comes down to groceries.

About the Founder

Born in Seoul, Bom Kim left Korea at the age of seven and went to boarding school in Massachusetts. Later, he attended Harvard University followed by Harvard Business School but dropped out after six months. Before starting Coupang, he worked at Boston Consulting Group and currently his net worth is approximately $6.8 billion.

RBI

RBI Extends Tokenization Demand For Credit And Debit Cards By 6 Months, Providing Relief To Online Shoppers.

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By

According to new Reserve Bank of India guidelines, e-commerce companies like Amazon and Flipkart, as well as online delivery aggregators like Zomato, will not be able to save card information on their platforms starting July 1, 2022. (RBI). Beginning next year, customers conducting online transactions on any e-commerce platform will be required to enter their debit or credit card information each time. Customers can, however, avoid the hassle by giving platforms permission to tokenize their cards.
To improve security, the RBI issued guidelines in March 2020 that prohibited merchants from saving customers’ card details. The regulatory body updated its guidelines on card tokenization services in September of this year to improve safety and security. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Thursday extended the deadline for card tokenization until June 30, 2022, in response to repeated requests from industry stakeholders. Tokenization is the process of replacing credit and debit card information with an alternate code known as a “token.”

Because the card details are not shared with the merchant during transaction processing, tokenized cards are considered safe for online transactions. “The deadline for storing card on file (CoF) data has been extended by six months, to June 30, 2022,” the central bank said in a notice to all payment system operators, adding that all such data will be purged after the extended deadline expires.
The RBI had previously set a deadline of December 31, 2021, as the end date. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had previously been requested by the Indian Banks Association (IBA) to extend the deadline for tokenizing. The main reason for the request for a delay in the tokenization deadline was that many small and medium-sized businesses lack the infrastructure to transition to the new system, even though banks are more or less prepared.

RBI
Image source: indianexpress.com

Tokenisation is the process of replacing credit and debit card information with an alternate code known as a “token.” Each card, token requestor, and device has its own token. The entity that accepts a customer’s request for tokenization of a card and forwards it to the card network for issuance of a corresponding token is known as the token requestor.

The cardholder can have his or her card tokenized by submitting a request through the token requestor’s app. Token requestors send their requests to the card networks, which issue tokens with the approval of the card issuer that correspond to the particular card, token requestor, and device.

So, what does this imply for a loyal customer? The following are ten key points to remember:

  1. Customers will be unable to save their debit or credit card information on any e-commerce platform beginning July 1, 2022.
  2. Every time a customer conducts an online transaction, they will be required to re-enter their card details.
  3. Customers can give e-commerce companies permission to “tokenize” their cards in order to avoid the hassle. E-commerce platforms will ask the card network to encrypt details with additional factor authentication if necessary after receiving a customer’s consent.
  4. Customers can save their cards for future transactions once the e-commerce platform receives the encrypted details.
  5. Most major e-commerce platforms can only tokenize Mastercard and Visa-issued cards for the time being. Other financial services cards are expected to be tokenized in the near future.
  6. For both credit and debit cards, the new RBI guidelines must be followed.
  7. International transactions are exempt from the new guidelines. The new RBI guidelines are only applicable to domestic cards and transactions.
  8. Customers will not be charged an additional fee for card tokenization.
  9. On e-commerce platforms, tokenized cards will be identified by the last four digits as well as the issuing bank and network name.
  10. Finally, card tokenization is not required. Customers can choose to tokenize their cards for faster transactions or enter their card information manually.