As the nation goes into 21 days lockdown to contain COVID-19 India’s e-commerce giant Flipkart has suspended its operations. Though the guidelines issued by the government allows e-commerce to deliver ‘essentials’ like grocery, ration etc Flipkart decided to shut all operations.
“Hello fellow Indians, We’re temporarily suspending our services…These are difficult times, times like no other. Never before, have communities stayed apart to stay safe. Never before, has being at home meant helping the nation,” read a message from Flipkart. The message was displayed on the company’s website and mobile application.
Though products ordering would not be available Flipkart’s payment services are available. That is users can pay for their mobile bills and utility bills using Flipkart’s app and its website.
Meanwhile, Flipkart’s market rival ‘Amazon‘ has not shut it’s operations completely. Amazon in a blog highlighted that e-commerce platform is seeing a huge spike as brick and mortar stores are closed and people are staying in.
“To serve our customers’ most urgent needs while also ensuring the safety of our employees, we are temporarily prioritizing our available fulfilment and logistics capacity to serve products that are currently critical for our customers such as Household Staples, Packaged Food, Health Care, Hygiene, Personal safety and other high priority products. This also means that we have to temporarily stop taking orders and disable shipments for lower-priority products,” read Amazon’s blog post.
Also Read: These Services Would Be Available For ’21 Days’ As PM Announces ‘Nation Wide Lockdown’
Amazon would now temporarily stop taking orders and disable shipments for lower-priority products. Customers who have already placed orders for low-priority products, they will be given a choice to cancel those orders and receive a refund for the same.
