New Delhi: With a decline in in-store purchases during the pandemic, online orders and remote deliveries have become the primary source of revenue for many Indian merchants. Yet, most are struggling with the hefty commissions and delivery charges that are to be paid to service providers leading to negative margins during the tough times. To address this issue, Gurgaon-based O2O commerce platform DotPe has announced a ‘free delivery’ initiative for businesses that include restaurants, grocery stores, F&V merchants, meat & poultry shops and other sellers of consumables.

As part of the initiative, while DotPe will continue to charge a one-time subscription fee from the merchants at the time of onboarding, the Free Delivery benefits will prove to be a boon in nullifying the initial investment made by the businesses. Depending on the subscription packages, merchants can avail as many as 250 free deliveries. 

Considering that the consumers may not let go of the convenience of Online Shopping anytime soon, DotPe’s offering is nothing less than a blessing to the industry.

Speaking on the initiative, Mr. Shailaz Nag, Co-Founder & CEO of DotPe said, “It’s a very crucial period for our country with the third wave being anticipated to hit us anytime and people living in constant fear & finding it difficult to step out from their safe zones. Online shopping seems to be their only respite and we, at DotPe, believe this is our only chance at helping these local businesses survive such difficult times. We have always directed our efforts towards the growth of this ecosystem and hence, have rolled out this initiative of providing free delivery services to the merchants/retailers.”

The company has been supporting the eCommerce industry since the first wave of the pandemic last year through its suite of contactless solutions, assisting them to reorient their operations by connecting with their customers directly through WhatsApp. More recently, DotPe’s #OrderDirect campaign drove people across India to order directly from restaurants and support their local businesses to help them stay afloat during the pandemic.

DotPe has been constantly investing in the growth of small merchants by eliminating manual delivery integrations and coordination. With a 94% of order fulfillment rate, the platform has already surpassed the industry giants when it comes to seamless deliveries. Merchants get over 38% of daily orders from repeat customers, bringing much-needed sustainability to their businesses.

Within a year, DotPe has onboarded over 6.2 million offline merchants of all kinds, making it the only O2O brand to provide direct ordering services at such a large scale. In the coming months, the brand intends to introduce many more solutions to ensure even the smallest businesses have access to the right tech to scale their business.