Coronavirus Lockdown: Rapido Ties Up With Essential Suppliers To Aid Last-Mile Deliveries

This move was taken to support the last-mile deliveries in more than 90 cities as the ongoing lockdown restricts essential supplies for millions of Indians across the country.

New Delhi: The nation is under 21-day lockdown to combat the spread of COVID-19 infection and amid this utter shutdown, people have to go through hassles for the essential items. Between this, the online bike taxi aggregator Rapido on Monday announced its partnership with essential suppliers such as Bigbasket, Big Baazar, and Spencer’s Retail. This move was taken to support the last-mile deliveries in more than 90 cities as the ongoing lockdown restricts essential supplies for millions of Indians across the country. Rapido started its operations in the year 2015, and it has become one of the key players in the ride-hailing segment in India that has seen rapid growth in the last couple of years with major stakeholders like Uber, Ola, etc. Unlike the Ola and Uber, Rapido only operates in the bike-taxi segment. Google Play Store, the Rapido app has more than 1 crore downloads, indicating its popularity in the mobility provider space. The Bengaluru-based company said it is also in talks with others like Grofers, Dunzo, and FreshtoHome to extend its support to help them deliver essential orders. The company said in a statement, “We, at Rapido, are committed to accelerate our existing Rapido-Delivery services to provide for essential supplies during the ongoing lockdown due to COVID-19”. It further added, “Seventy percent of our fleet of captains (driver-partners) are on-ground to facilitate supplies,”. Online delivery platforms are struggling to meet the surge in demand as there are few delivery boys at their service. The bike app said, “While Rapido will be the platform to felicitate these deliveries, we will not be charging any commission from the Captains,”.