Other quick-commerce platforms such as Swiggy Instamart and Zepto were also selling gold and silver coins on the day of Dhanteras when purchasing items made of gold, silver and brass is considered auspicious.
“Dhanteras muhurat (auspicious time) hasn’t even started and we’re already close to hitting half of the gold and silver coins sales from last year,” Albinder Dhindsa, chief executive of Blinkit, wrote in a post on microblogging platform X (formerly Twitter) before 12 in the afternoon. “Thankfully, we took a big bet and have enough to serve the high demand.”
Dhanteras, also known as Dhanatrayodashi, is the first day of the festival of Diwali across many regions of India.
Besides coins, there has also been a surge in the purchase of brooms, which is also considered auspicious on this day. “We learned that it is auspicious to buy jhadu (brooms) today when brooms got stocked out at all our dark stores on Dhanteras 2 years ago,” Dhindsa tweeted later, with a graph showing the increase in sales of brooms as compared to last Friday.
Fresh flowers and leaves were another high-selling category for Blinkit, said Dhindsa. “Most sold within the category are lotus flowers and pooja leaves which are used for Lakshmi Pooja on Dhanteras,” he posted on X.Other products considered auspicious to buy on Dhanteras such as steel utensils and home electronics also were in high demand on quick-commerce platforms.Blinkit has been actively advertising its 10-minute deliveries for Dhanteras sales as it does every year. Last year, on October 22, it sold 200 coins per minute, according to a post by Dhindsa.
Blinkit has been pushing high-volume seasonal items, including big-ticket items across the year, during cricket matches, festivals, New Year’s Eve, and even on iPhone launch days.
Blinkit reported a positive contribution margin (revenue minus costs like store operation expenses, delivery costs, wastage and packaging costs, among other things) for the first time for the quarter ended September, even as the parent firm Zomato remained profitable for the second straight quarter. Its contribution margin as a percentage of gross order value was at 1.3% in the latest quarter, against -7.3% in the year-ago quarter, with the quarterly contribution at Rs 36 crore.
On November 3, ET reported that Blinkit saw its average order value touch Rs 607, against Rs 568 a year ago. The quick-commerce arm’s gross order value (total order value including taxes, delivery charges, all discounts, excluding tips) jumped to Rs 2,760 crore, from Rs 1,482 crore a year ago.
