Online pharmacy 1mg, now owned by Tata Group, is planning to bring express delivery basically within an hour, medicines will be delivered to consumers. It has already started delivering medicines in 4-5 hours of placing an order in parts of New Delhi and Gurugram, and will make the service into an express delivery across the country, sources said.

“1mg are keen to bring the one-hour delivery to consumers. There is a lot of demand for it, which has only increased after the pandemic as people need various medicines and healthcare-related products in a quick time. They are working on expediting the launch,” a source said.

It is tough to manage in the express delivery space, but it has its advantages and disadvantages, an entrepreneur who ran a firm in the space said. “Express delivery can bring volumes over a period of time but its biggest challenge is lower average selling price. Delivery costs are roughly around the same for an order but while factoring in returns or exchanges, the smaller order value hits your margins.”

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According to him, express delivery is a long-term play where one has to give it four-five years to be able to see desired results at scale. “You have to fight for it for three-five years with adequate capital for the vertical. For example, in a city like Bengaluru, you would need four warehouses to service express delivery compared to one or two for 24-48-hour deliveries. In Mumbai strictly within city limits, this number would be seven-eight, while the Delhi-NCR region would need close to a dozen,” this startup founder added.