Not enough delivery execs: Gig workers in high demand ahead of festivals

Companies are also giving better incentives such as instant payment throughout the year and consistent working capital flow for delivery partners

As grocery quick commerce and e-commerce platforms ramp up their offerings for the festival season and extend their services to cover late night deliveries, industry experts say that this is leading to a tussle between such platforms and logistics firms to hire more gig workers.

With demand for delivery workers on the rise, platforms have seen a drop in the pool of these gig workers, who are being lured in by e-commerce platforms with higher salaries and festival season benefits.

“At Taskmo, quick commerce taskers have declined by 20-40 per cent in the last few months. Festival season sales are at an all-time high after the COVID pandemic outbreak, so the e-commerce platforms are providing highly competitive salaries as well as incentives to their taskers/gig workers, which is making taskers more attracted to this sector. Currently, at Taskmo, there are around 500,000-600,000 tasks performed every month as compared to 300,000 in May,” said Prashant Janadri, co-founder of Taskmo.

Taskmo, a gig platform with over 750,000 registered workers, says that it has witnessed a 50-70 per cent increase in seasonal hiring from e-commerce platforms, especially since July, due to the imminent festive season.

Janadri explains that most of the gig workers are engaged in the e-commerce sector, fostering a similar trend for job roles such as last-mile delivery executive roles, pickers, packers, sorters, customer support, and field sales executives.

Job and professional networking platform Apna.co has also witnessed an uptick in the demand for gig workers on their platform in the past two months.

“In the last two months, we have seen an uptick in the demand for gig workers on our platform. We have recorded a 100 percent increase in job posts for roles such as delivery partners during this time period (July-September), this has primarily been due to the upcoming festive season,” said Manas Singh, Chief Business Officer at Apna.co.

“We have noted that companies are not only providing additional benefits, but monetary incentives such as a joining bonus are also being given to attract gig workers this season,” he added.

Porter, a logistics company, has witnessed massive employment generation on the 2W supply side, which has grown in tandem to meet the high demand. CEO and Co-Founder Pranav Goel of Porter said: “At Porter, we are seeing 3X year on year growth, which is massive given the large base we operate in."

Companies are also giving better incentives for delivery partners. For instance, Porter, which introduced industry-first in providing an instant payment module to the delivery partners throughout the year, and also ensuring a consistent working capital flow. "We also offer flexible working to our partners with no minimum lock-in time which enables them in managing their personal or financial requirements through exploring other opportunities. Porter rewards and recognises the high performance of our delivery partners during the robust festive demand and offers incentives and benefits of surge pricing around that time," added Goel.

According to logistics unicorn Ecom Express, there has been a surge in demand for delivery talent which has grown by 35 per cent over the previous year.

Many e-commerce platforms are stemming the tide by offering delivery workers joining bonuses and other festival season perks.

“Currently we have a strong delivery fleet of over 75,000 partners to handle demand spikes.  We have excellent incentive schemes chalked out for partners who are putting in extra hours to cover more orders. For partners who log in on all days during the festive season, there is a potential opportunity to earn up to 45,000-50,000 per month,” said Vijay Verma, head of operation and supply chain at Dunzo.

Verma added: “We will also roll out lucrative schemes for part-timers so they can have additional earnings during this festive period. Over and above these schemes, deliveries during peak hours also come with additional perks for partners."

Industry watchers say that quick commerce has seen the decline because gig workers are preferring to work for e-commerce platforms like Amazon, Flipkart. These platforms are offering highly competitive salaries and incentives to their employees. Seasonal hiring has also been high from these platforms, said a source in the industry.

“We can see an increase in demand for delivery personnel. For the peak festive season rush, Ecom Express is hiring seasonal staff and onboarding gig-workers and sees a 35 per cent jump from last year. About 60-65 per cent of the hiring will take place in tier-3 and 4 cities and remote parts of the country,” said Ashish Sikka, Chief Strategy Officer of Ecom Express.

Many quick commerce platforms such as Instamart, Zepto and Dunzo have recently extended delivery time of groceries till late at night.

Much like its competitors, Zomato-owned Blinkit has also forayed into late night deliveries in anticipation of the festive season’s high demand.

“We have extended our operations to late-night deliveries in select areas in Delhi-NCR, Bangalore and Kolkata as a prep for the festive season. We are planning a wide range of assortments for the festive season to capture most customer needs- all delivered in minutes,” said a Blinkit spokesperson.