NEW DELHI: The food delivery space is set to get hotter with Flipkart planning a foray over the next 30 days.“Food delivery is another customer use case within our broader e-commerce platform. We will begin with a pilot, learn from it, and decide how to scale across the rest of the country. We will always come with a solid value proposition and innovate as we go along,” Flipkart Group CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy told TOI in an interview but did not disclose the details.The Walmart-owned homegrown e-commerce giant will initially launch a pilot in Bangalore, and is exploring a separate app, while also introducing the service on ONDC, people familiar with the move said.While the food delivery market was seen to be stabilising with Swiggy and Zomato turning into a virtual duopoly, Krishnamurthy said there is never a status quo. “Nothing is over. You go back in history, especially in our industry, somebody has innovated, somebody has disrupted and eventually the market expanded. New players will keep coming into the market.” At the end of the Dec quarter, Zomato controlled around 57% of the food-delivery space, with Swiggy’s share pegged at 43%, according to Datum Intelligence estimates.Over the years, Flipkart has expanded its offerings from selling books to offering travel services and grocery with several developments coming under Krishnamurthy’s watch as CEO, a job in which he is about to complete a decade.“The e-commerce industry in India has come a long way. The numbers are now in the tens of billions. It follows a particular adoption curve. I would say 80% of this adoption curve is consistent across the world. Initially, it is books and media, then you look at some branded electronics, consumer electronics, and branded fashion and then it goes to unbranded, to appliances and eventually it comes to consumables, essentials. India has followed the same curve,” said the Flipkart boss.While quick commerce has seen the entry of new players such as Blinkit and Zepto, which disrupted the market, Krishnamurthy doesn’t appear unduly worried. “Value proposition has always been central to how we think – and value doesn’t mean cheap. It means offering something genuinely worthwhile to customers across all price points. We had ourselves attempted something like that six-seven years back. We had a lot of learnings, but we did not scale it in a very big way. And then we saw that the market is eventually coming together towards that and we quickly jumped in. What has been very encouraging is how quickly customer behaviour has evolved and how well adoption has taken off. Some of what we see is quite surprising in a positive way,” he said.“It doesn’t matter if somebody starts a particular business or a business model and anybody comes in after two years or seven years, if they execute well, if they have a solid team, if they are focused, they can easily win,” he added.For the company, the current focus is Gen Z. “We are now a Gen Z first company. If you look at categories with Gen Z consumers – clothing, fashion, beauty, home – we are completely up there. The Gen Z customer relates to us like nobody else,” Krishnamurthy said, adding that in certain segments this cohort accounts for nearly half the sales.“It will be very high across fashion, electronics, and beauty. Myntra could be even a bit higher than 50%. And it is not just products – Gen Z wants experiences. We are seeing very strong engagement from Gen Z on Cleartrip as well. They travel, they eat out, they spend on experiences. That shift from products to experiences is very real and very visible in our data.”Tapping into Gen Z behaviour, there is greater “videofication” too, with the e-commerce major trying live commerce as a tool to give a feel of the product and services on its platform.
