Festive orders pile up in delivery meltdown

Mounting delivery partner attrition and under-staffed warehouses are responsible for the widespread delays—up to 7 days in many cases—in e-commerce and quick commerce deliveries, as well as a backlog of unshipped orders, industry executives and analysts said.

The situation underscores a critical choke point in the industry’s supply chain that’s unlikely to be resolved quickly, they added.

The hold-up reflects a strain on the entire e-commerce ecosystem’s capacity to meet the burgeoning volume of online deliveries during what is its most profitable season.

Many orders fulfilled by major logistics firms like Blue Dart, Delhivery and Shiprocket are facing delays as long as 5-7 days in metro cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru, up from 1-2 days during non-festive season days.

Shruti, a 35-year-old marketing professional in Bengaluru, has been waiting for her shipment of activewear clothing for the past six days. “It was initially supposed to be delivered in two days. I got an email from the company saying there is an unexplained delay and the delivery date has now been moved to 1st October. The Blue Dart tracking link has not been updated yet.”

Ishwar, an avid e-commerce shopper, has reported similar delays for his smartphone order booked on Flipkart on day one of The Big Billion Days. The shipment has made little progress, prompting him to make multiple calls to customer support in the past two days.

Many warehouses of large logistics firms in Delhi and Bengaluru show heaps of unshipped orders, especially as they deal with under-staffed pickers and packers. This situation couldn’t have come at a worse time for e-commerce and logistics firms, when they aimed to prioritise quicker deliveries and build brand loyalty.

Early insights from this year’s major sale events like Flipkart’s Big Billion Days and Amazon’s Great Indian Festival already show sharp spikes compared to last year. For instance, smartphone sales volumes on 22 and 23 September surged nearly 40% compared to the first two days of sales last year, according to estimates from Datum Intelligence. Electronics like televisions and kitchen appliances surged more than 30% this year compared to the last, while fashion and beauty and personal care products grew 20%.

Brands feel the heat

The delivery crunch is creating ripple effects for smaller direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands that rely heavily on logistics networks to fulfill orders beyond their home markets. For young D2C founders, the delays have turned into a double-edged sword—lost sales during a peak season and damaged customer trust.

“Logistics continues to be the bane of my business. The big players often delay intercity shipments by several days, and that directly eats into customer trust. I’ve had buyers tell me they’ll never shop with me again because their order arrived seven days late — well past Ganesh Chaturthi festivities, when it was actually needed,” said the founder of a D2C aromatics brand, asking not to be named as his brand continues to work with major fulfillment platforms.

“On top of that, I end up absorbing higher return costs, since customers either refuse the package or send it back, which makes an already small-margin business even harder to sustain,” he added.

Some are even reconsidering their dependence on traditional logistics.

“Sometimes, quick commerce just makes more sense. “Even if it doesn’t arrive in the promised 15 minutes, it’s at least same-hour or same-day delivery—and that’s what matters to customers. The model has its issues, from unpredictable inventory to limited SKUs, but we’re still doubling down. Quick commerce already contributes around 10% of our sales, and we’re targeting 20% soon,” said a D2C clothing brand, wishing to remain anonymous.

Queries sent to Delhivery did not elicit a response. In an emailed statement, Blue Dart said, “Our operations are running smoothly, and we are delivering shipments on time unless impacted by unforeseeable circumstances.”

IPO-bound Shiprocket, in an emailed statement, told Mint that “instead of scaling a direct workforce, we’ve focused on scaling intelligence.”

“Since we operate on an asset-light, partner-led model, our focus this festive season has been on empowering courier partners with advanced technology rather than building fleets,” it added.

Quick commerce platforms like Swiggy, Blinkit, Flipkart Minutes and Zepto, too, are seeing stretched delivery timelines extending beyond 30 minutes in some cases and even longer during peak morning and evening hours. This includes grocery items like fruits and vegetables as well as non-grocery items like kitchen and home supplies.

While non-grocery orders already take longer to deliver due to dark stores being farther apart, delivery times have now stretched from 20 minutes to as long as 45 minutes in some areas.

Swiggy Instamart, Zepto, Blinkit, and Flipkart Minutes did not respond to queries sent by Mint.

Labour crunch

While some delays are a given, this year’s severe shortage of delivery and warehouse staff makes the situation unusually dire, according to Balasubramanian Anantha Narayanan, senior vice-president at staffing firm TeamLease Services. In the last month alone, churn has stretched beyond the typical 12-15% every month observed in non-festive months.

The industry is simply unable to hire enough people to handle the massive surge in online deliveries, even with gig worker incentives holding steady. According to Teamlease’s estimates, India has roughly 60 lakh delivery partners and the festive season typically requires at least 20% more workers–that’s about 12 lakh.

“We may have a few lakh additional workers during these months, but certainly not 12 lakh. That’s why major supply chain constraints are being created,” Narayanan told Mint.

And this gap is expected to widen. For context, a total of 1.2 trillion orders are expected to be shipped in this year’s festival months, a 27% rise compared to 94,800 crore last year, as per estimates by market research firm Datum Intelligence.

Mint’s visit to the warehousing hubs of Blue Dart and Delhivery in Delhi-NCR suggested that the festive surge is translating into heaps of unshipped parcels, with supervisors admitting they are working with thinner teams than last year.

“Every other week, some new faces join and old ones leave. By the time someone learns the system, they’re already gone. It slows us down because we keep training replacements instead of just focusing on shipments,” said a warehouse worker in South Delhi, pointing to attrition as a key hindrance in the workflow.

“During peak, the parcels just keep piling up. We’re asked to do longer shifts, sometimes 12–14 hours, but many people can’t handle the pace. That’s why attrition is so high right now,” said another warehouse worker in Noida.

Rising competition among quick commerce companies has accelerated the poaching of delivery staff from logistics firms, who are lured away with higher pay and better incentives. This trend has become more pronounced this year, exacerbating the industry’s staffing crisis.

Moreover, delayed flagship sales and managing old inventory have tied up sellers, putting even more pressure on the supply chain.

“Major festive sales got off to a late start this year because companies were waiting for the GST announcements. Typically, these offers would start in late August. There’s also a major supply chain shock because many retailers were trying to get rid of stock at discounts to invite new stock after September 22,” said TeamLease’s Narayanan.

To be sure, large e-commerce operators are attempting to bulk up their seasonal workforce. Amazon India said last month it has created 1.5 lakh jobs across fulfilment centres, sort centres, and last-mile delivery stations. Walmart-owned Flipkart has opened up 2.2 lakh direct and indirect on-ground roles, including dark store workers, as it expands operations under its quick commerce arm Minutes across more cities. Small-town focused Meesho, too, has added over 6 lakh jobs, with 70% of them in tier-3 and tier-4 towns.

In the December quarter of FY25, Zomato’s Blinkit had 1.85 lakh monthly active riders, while rival Swiggy Instamart had 5.39 lakh riders for its food delivery and quick commerce business combined.

“The intent is definitely there but it’s not possible to fill all the vacancies in all pockets. We are yet to see how the festive season unfolds. But I don’t expect the supply chain issues to be resolved very easily,” TeamLease’s Narayanan said.