Blinkit Sales Hit As Delivery Executives Protest Against Pay Cut: Report The development is estimated to have a bearing on Zomato's consolidated revenues for the first quarter of the current financial year

The protests launched by delivery executives of Zomato-owned Blinkit in the company's home ground Delhi-NCR against a revised payout regime have impacted sales of the quick commerce firm. The development is estimated to have a bearing on Zomato's consolidated revenues for the first quarter of the current financial year, according to a TOI report.

"We estimate Blinkit was operating about 370 dark stores pan-India as of Q3FY23. This implies about 25% of the dark stores are currently not operational. Given that at least 3-4 days' sales have been lost, this implies around 1% loss in revenue from Blinkit and around 0.15% of consolidated revenue for Q1FY24 already," ICICI Securities quoted as saying in the report.

According to media reports, delivery professionals of Zomato-owned quick commerce platform Blinkit met Gurugram Deputy Labour Commissioner Dinesh Kumar on Monday. The Inc42 reported that the staffs who have been protesting since last week have sent a set of demands to the labour commissioner that included increasing the minimum pay to INR 25, no termination of access for a rider even if they are unable to log in for 20 days, reverting to giving payment from cash on delivery orders to SM (store manager) and arrangement of water and toilets for the drivers. It is understood that workers will now receive a minimum fee of INR 15 per delivery against INR 25 earlier.

Stating this issue, BharatPe co-founder Ashneer Grover took to Twitter to highlight the problems that have bitten delivery firms Blinkit/Zepto. The former Shark Tank India judge in a post said that the 10-minute delivery model or the entire domain of quick commerce has no unit economics. He wrote on Twitter, "BlinkIt / Zepto - problem is not INR 15 for delivery against INR 50. Problem is 10 Min delivery has no economics - low ticket size and low margin can never be solved through forced low delivery cost. BlinkIt journey: 90 Min (bull run) -> Next day (bear run) -> 10 Min (bull run) ->??"

Zomato's grocery unit Blinkit in an email reportedly said it had introduced a new structure for riders that compensates them based on their effort and was engaging with them to reopen the shut stores.