Swiggy Instamart scales up tech to deliver 1 mn roses in Valentine's week

Joy Alexander, managing director of Four Seasons Flower Depot Pvt. Ltd has been busy since December preparing for the bumper sale that his enterprise is expecting this Valentine’s Day. The Bengaluru-based firm sells 20,000 roses a day. Alexander is expecting the order volume of his firm to increase 3X for roses during this Valentine’s week. This was made possible after his enterprise adopted food tech giant Swiggy’s quick commerce platform Instamart.

Swiggy said couples across India are using Instamart to purchase and deliver gifts to their loved ones. Instamart itself, which sold over 2.5 lakh red roses last Valentine’s Day, has been boosting the procurement of red roses. It expects to sell over 1 million roses this year’s Valentine’s week.

“Valentine’s week is a time for everyone to show and share their love,” said Swiggy Instamart spokesperson. “It has been an important time for Instamart as we see a growing number of both planned and unplanned purchases of items ranging from roses, chocolates, and strawberries to stuffed animals.”

Launched in August 2020, Instamart is now present in over 25 cities. It uses Swiggy’s technology and dedicated delivery fleet to bring groceries and other daily essentials to the doorsteps of Indians within minutes. The aim is to deliver groceries in 10-15 minutes through a network of seller-owned dark stores.

Technology plays a key role in ensuring only the freshest produce reaches consumers. Some of the technological interventions include- a system to implement traceability of the produce.

Customers can scan the QR (quick response) code on their fresh produce packages. This enables them to know where it was harvested along with the farmer’s name and photo.

Artificial intelligence-based quality measurement tools that use image recognition help check the quality and grade of the produce. The seller-run dark stores have temperature sensors to ensure that the correct ambient temperature is maintained to keep the produce fresh.

Also, self-learning systems are being developed for both short and long-term demand planning. These help farmers plan their sowing and harvesting in advance. This reduces wastage and keeps the prices stable. Swiggy has also implemented automatic sorting, grading, and packaging machines to help reduce the manual touches to keep packed produce as hygienic as possible.

With a boom in demand for roses, sellers and vendors on Instamart have tied up with nearly 80 rose farmers across the country to help fulfill rose orders. For instance, people in Bengaluru ordered the most flowers last Valentine’s Day with users spending as much as Rs 3000 on them. This was followed by Mumbai. 

However, when it came to cities that had the highest share of flowers in Instamart orders, it was Indore (3.88 per cent) and Lucknow (3.42 per cent) followed by Coimbatore (3.07 per cent) and Goa (3.05 per cent). Instamart expects a 4x jump in orders this year, fulfilling nearly a million rose orders. It is specifically witnessing huge demand for ‘Taj Mahal’ roses, a variety of deep red roses.

Also, fresh produce, which includes fruits and vegetables during the demand season is a growing category for Swiggy Instamart with high repetition rates. Coming off a successful strawberry season, Swiggy Instamart delivered over half a million strawberries harvested in the farmlands of Mahabaleshwar. These are delivered to the doorstep of consumers across western and southern cities. To procure this fresh produce, sellers and vendors on  Instamart work with farmers across the country. Multiple collection centres have been set up allowing them to bring the produce farm to the table same day.

Other products which are witnessing huge demand, especially during Valentine’s week on Instamart include chocolates, teddy bears, greeting cards, and curated gift boxes.

Last year in January, Swiggy raised $700 million in Invesco-led new funding, which made the outfit a decacorn, almost doubling its valuation to $10.7 billion.

This investment is helping Swiggy to expand its services at a time when the adoption of food and online grocery is accelerating in the country.

In 2021, Swiggy closed a $1.25-billion fundraise, marking the first investment in the category by SoftBank Vision Fund 2.