Swiggy, a popular online food delivery platform in India, has reportedly decided to discontinue its premium grocery delivery pilot program called Handpicked. This development has been confirmed by two individuals who are familiar with the matter.
“At Swiggy we’re continuously experimenting with new propositions in line with our vision to enable convenience to consumers,” a Swiggy spokesperson said, while confirming the development.
“Handpicked was being piloted in a few zones in Bengaluru and we have had several positive learnings from it,” the spokesperson added.
According to an individual with knowledge of the matter, Swiggy aimed to create an online version of “Nature’s Basket” through its Handpicked program, which provided premium, gourmet, imported, and niche grocery items. SoftBank, the multinational conglomerate based in Japan, had backed this endeavor.
Swiggy’s Handpicked program offered a diverse selection of products for sale, ranging from Coca Cola’s Cherry Cola (a popular beverage primarily found in the United States) to locally-made Kombucha by startups based in Bengaluru, and Methi Khakhra from Gujarat. Furthermore, the program featured spreads and pre-cooked meat products from various cuisines, such as Italian, German, and Mexican.
Swiggy has decided to continue its grocery sales operations through Instamart and Insanely Good.
At a time when Swiggy is expanding into the grocery delivery and e-commerce sectors, the company is encountering new challenges. Despite this, Swiggy has decided to continue its operations in the grocery delivery space through its Instamart and Insanely Good platforms. In addition to these initiatives, the company recently launched an e-commerce platform called Maxx, which includes categories such as home, pet care, and stationary products. Swiggy had also renamed and rebranded its essential delivery service Supr Daily as Insanely Good earlier.
Read More: Swiggy ventures into one-hour ecommerce delivery with Maxx, rivals Flipkart and Amazon in India
The company employs a uniform backend infrastructure and operations across all its grocery services.
Swiggy has been implementing cost-cutting measures company-wide, which included laying off around 380 employees and discontinuing its meat delivery service this year. Additionally, the top leadership of the company has undergone some changes, with the head of its quick-commerce business, Karthik Gurumurthy, stepping down and being replaced by Co-founder Phani Kishan. Chief Technology Officer Dale Vaz is also departing from the company.
Read More: Dale Vaz steps down as Swiggy CTO, Madhusudan Rao takes charge
Madhusudan Rao, the Senior Vice President of Consumer Tech and FinTech (Engineering and Product) at Swiggy, will be taking over from Dale Vaz, who joined the company from Amazon in June 2018.
Swiggy has implemented a platform fee of INR 2 for all orders, including those made by Swiggy One customers who are exempted from delivery charges, in its food delivery business which has not shown significant growth since the pandemic began to subside.
Read More: Swiggy implements ‘platform fee’ on all orders, users to bear the cost