DHL Supply Chain, which is into contract logistics, has announced the expansion of its India Fulfilment Network (IFN) from its first location in Bengaluru to Ahmedabad, Mumbai, and Delhi, to support growth of the Indian e-commerce ecosystem as well as to fuel the growth of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by expanding its infrastructure and services.
The company said it has invested over ₹25 crore in capacity building through the IFN.
IFN, an omni-channel offering, enables pan-India e-commerce order delivery with use-cases ranging from a single warehouse setup to multiple micro-fulfilment centres allowing brands to choose a suitable strategy for supplying orders from their online shoppers.
Vikas Anand, managing director, DHL Supply Chain, India, said, “With our IFN, brands and organisations can utilise our footprint across India to empower their omni-channel sales via a state-of-the-art plug and play model, that will perform a vital role in boosting their overall business.”
With this facility, SMEs would no longer need to be worried about the warehousing of their products and delivery which DHL Supply Chain would take care for a fee and they should rather focus on manufacturing, which is their core area of activity.
“Using IFN not only reduces delivery time, but also helps avoid long distance shipments across the country, thus reducing CO2 emissions occurring from transport,” he added.
He said companies had experienced 20% increase in business gained online, due to quicker fulfilment and deliveries.
“IFN’s model enables merchants to directly sell their products across the whole country and be closer to online buyers, leveraging our network without having to make large investments in infrastructure and IT while providing end-to-end visibility of the operations,” he added.
Highlighting that the e-commerce market in India would grow to $74.8 billion by the end of 2022 and was projected to grow at 35% to $188 billion by 2025, the company said this shift had been facilitated by the shifting of buyers and sellers to the online channels.
It said the expansion of e-commerce and 3PL sectors was creating demand for new warehousing space, which was expected to increase by 160% over last year.
DHL Supply Chain said its sites located in proximity to major urban centres would cater to sectors like fashion, apparel, accessories, cosmetics and consumer electronics. It currently delivers more than 1,00,000 orders every day from its e-commerce operations in India.
