Swiggy, a food delivery service, has launched Minis, a marketplace for small businesses, in an effort to broaden its offerings and enter the e-commerce industry. Supr Daily operations in six locations were recently shut down by the company. Swiggy is developing a marketplace strategy to enrol local retailers and direct-to-consumer companies, according to an Economic Times story. According to people close to the situation, the business has already begun testing the Minis pilot.
“We’re currently piloting a platform named Minis on Swiggy that enables D2C brands, small businesses and individual entrepreneurs to showcase their offerings directly to lakhs of customers,” Swiggy shared in a statement.
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This suggests that, like Instamart, Minis will be a part of Swiggy and will not be offered as a standalone platform. Swiggy’s Instamart service already includes groceries in addition to food deliveries. The company is currently looking to expand its product line to include electronics, fashion garments, and other items.
“The idea right now is to onboard local electronics and fashion retailers onto the Swiggy platform,” a source familiar with the matter said.
Swiggy would not employ its delivery fleet to complete orders, unlike for food and goods. Instead, the merchant will be responsible for fulfilling the orders that have been placed with them. This, however, could change if the platform is officially launched and the quantity of orders skyrockets.
Source- Swiggy
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The Minis platform will be a national marketplace, unlike Instamart, which is a hyperlocal play.
It’ll be fascinating to observe how the platform develops. Existing businesses like Amazon and Flipkart, who already dominate the Indian e-commerce market, will face severe competition.
Even as technology stocks were hammered in the Indian market on January 24, the food and grocery delivery platform Swiggy raised $700 million at a valuation of $10.7 billion, more than doubling its valuation in six months.
Swiggy, based in Bengaluru, is now India’s fourth decacorn, a privately held company valued at $10 billion or more, following fintech Paytm, hotel aggregator Oyo, and ed-tech firm Byju’s.
