Swiggy stops grocery marketplace

NEW DELHI: Restaurant aggregator Swiggy has stopped its online marketplace for groceries, a service which had picked up steam during the lockdown. While it still offers its ‘Genie’ service for pick-and-drop and other marketplaces on its app, such as for meat and pet care, the Bengaluru-headquartered company plans to replace the grocery marketplace with ‘Instamart’, a quick grocery delivery initiative that will be serviced by cloud stores across cities.

Currently, Instamart — which delivers products in 45 minutes — is available in Bengaluru and Gurugram. But Swiggy plans to scale it up quickly, which will pit the food delivery giant against the likes of Bigbasket, Amazon Fresh and Reliance Jiomart.

Swiggy’s move comes in the wake of rival Zomato stopping its grocery delivery business that was created when the Covid-19 pandemic forced brickand-mortar stores to shut down. “With things getting back to normal, the number of people opting for online ordering of groceries from food delivery apps has diminished,” said a senior industry executive.