Pune: Heavy rain and waterlogging in the city have severely disrupted e-commerce operations , leading to a massive backlog of online orders. E-commerce services are struggling with flooded warehouses causing delays in delivery and damages to the products being delivered and their packaging. “Most of our micro-warehouses and distribution centres were located at ground floors for seamless disbursement.
Several such centres have been waterlogged, resulting in damaged cardboard packages. While we were already filled with non-deliverable orders, we also have a large number of fresh deliveries. On the other hand, some delivery agents and staff have taken ill and others dealing with vehicle damage and are unable to deliver,” said a city delivery manager of an e-commerce website.
Extreme weather conditions in other states have also contributed to the backlog as orders remain stuck at various warehouses throughout the country, like in Delhi, Karnataka, Kerala, Assam, and so on. This has left online shoppers frustrated and disappointed, facing an uncertain and disrupted shopping experience. “After a few days of delay, my order of home furniture was cancelled by the seller, so I had to look for other options on different e-commerce websites.
Those are also delayed now,” said Sudhir Mahadik, a resident of Bibvewadi. “I ordered some clothes, but they were damaged. I opted for a replacement but got something entirely different from what I ordered originally,” said Sana Ahmed, a.