Magicpin, the hyperlocal delivery platform, experienced an overwhelming surge in demand at 9 am on Monday. This unexpected influx of users caused its app to crash, leaving customers temporarily unable to access the platform.
The increased traffic came after the firm announced its collaboration with the National Cooperative Consumers Federation of India (NCCF) and Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) to introduce the “tomatoes @ INR70” initiative last week. As soon as the campaign went live, magicpin’s tomato stocks were swiftly depleted within the first 10 minutes, leaving many eager buyers struggling to place their orders.
Anshoo Sharma, CEO and Co-Founder of magicpin, said, “The unexpected volume of traffic momentarily overwhelmed our systems, leading to the temporary crash of our app.”
“We resolved the issue swiftly. We, however, sold out the entire inventory of limited tomato stocks with us within 10 minutes. There has been an overwhelming response from our users to the ‘tomatoes@70 initiative’ and we are working earnestly to meet the demand,” he added.
Following the occurrence, the company’s technology team promptly tackled the problem, and as a result, the platform has been fully restored and is now operational again.
This development comes at a critical juncture when tomato prices have been experiencing a sharp surge. The fruit has witnessed its retail prices crossing the INR 100 mark in various markets across India.
Between June 2 and July 3, tomato prices in Delhi’s Azadpur wholesale market have witnessed a substantial increase of 13-15 per cent, rising from INR 451 per quintal to INR 6,381 per quintal. Simultaneously, there has been a significant decline in arrivals, dropping by almost 40 per cent during the same period in Azadpur.
Among the 10,000 kilograms (kgs) of tomatoes sold by NCCF, magicpin has played a pivotal role by delivering nearly 5,000 kg. Additionally, the company has extended its support in enabling the initiative for other buyer apps on the ONDC platform.
As part of the initiative, users are limited to purchasing a maximum of 2 kg of tomatoes at INR 140 per week, with the convenience of home delivery. Magicpin reported an incredible response to the offer, fulfilling over 2400 orders across more than 90 pin codes in the Delhi-NCR region within a week’s duration.