Flipkart teams up with Mumbai’s tiffin carriers
Online retailer Flipkart will be drawing on the expertise of Mumbai’s “tiffin” lunchbox delivery carriers to help get parcels to its customers, according to reports published by The Financial Times and the BBC. The tiffin carriers, known as “dabbawalas”, have developed an elaborate coding system to deliver packed hot lunches to offices and schools across the sprawling city of Mumbai.
According to a case study undertaken by Harvard Business School researchers in 2010, the dabbawalas’ system, which uses colours, numbers, letters and symbols, provides a superb level of accuracy, with only one delivery in six million going awry.
The lunches boxes are marked with: letter abbreviations for collection points; a colour code for the starting station; a number for the destination station; and also markings for the customers’ address.
Flipkart wants to use the dabbawalas’ know-how to make the “last mile” distribution of packages more efficient.
Online retail in India is forecast to be worth $16 billion (£10 billion) by 2018.
“The dabbawalas of Mumbai are one of the most reliable and trusted brands in the city. Their unique delivery system has been smooth, reliable and has survived the test of time – even under extreme conditions,” said Neeraj Aggarwal, Flipkart’s senior director for last mile delivery.
Dabbawalas will be assigned deliveries from a Flipkart hub while collecting meals from customers’ homes. The tiffin carriers are currently using a paper-based tracking system, but there are plans to adopt apps and wearable technology.
Established in 2007 by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, Flipkart employs more than 16,000 people and reportedly has 30 million registered users.
