In a city which is ubiquitous for its never ending traffic snarls, one-ways and traffic signals, Dominos has announced a 20-min delivery guarantee. This comes after a pilot that the company undertook in Dec. ‘22 across 14 Indian cities. Based on a combonation of analytics, insights and technology, the delivery would be achieved, said Sameer Khetarpal, CEO of Jubilant Foodworks which runs Dominos Pizza, Dunkin Donuts, Popeyes, among other food brands in India.
“There are no incentives to the delivery staff for 20-minute delivery”, said the CEO, with increasing number of traffic violations and minor accidents caused by delivery personal across companies such as Dominos, Swiggy and Zomato. The company operates 170 outlets in India’s silicon valley, of the 1,700+ outlets across India. These outlets are spread across high streets, neighbourhood areas as well as malls and corporate food courts, making it achieve faster deliveries to customers.
On the business front, the company reported quarterly revenues of 1,316 Cr. during Q3 FY 23, an increase of 10.3% over the same period last year. However, PAT fell by 35% to 88 Cr (6.7%) on the revenues. After the lifting of lockdown since Feb. ‘22, consumers are preferring to dine-out more than ever.
The bigger question, however, is whether consumers are demanding faster deliveries, be it pizzas or groceries. Zepto, which innovated 10-min delivery of top grocery and household items in 2021, scaled to multiple cities across India burning Investor’s dollars. Grofers, after getting acquired by Zomato and with a new name of Blinkit also started offering 20-min delivery, in competition with Swiggy’s Instamart. Once the pandemic induced lockdown was lifted fully, the dependance on Q-commerce and hyperlocal delivery has significantly reduced from Q2 22-23 onwards, even in bigger cities where consumers are now back at malls, stores and neighbourhood shops and restaurants.
Bangalore could be a different market, with over 25% of the city’s residents working directly or indirectly in IT & ITES sector. The city that never sleeps, a tag once associated with Mumbai, is now shared by Bangalore. In 2022, the city was amongst those with slowest moving traffic in the world after London, according to TomTom, a Dutch traffic navigation mobile app development company. Dominos could, perhaps be delivering soon, at a traffic point to customers waiting in their cars or even public transportation, probably (sic). Innovation at its best.
