Blinkit Did Something That India Is Loving (And It Is Not Faster Deliveries)
Blinkit launched a new (subtle) feature, which did really well. So well, that it went viral. Here is what happened, and what I learned from it!
Recently, Sanjeet Sahoo, (a product manager at Groww), shared his experience about placing an order on Blinkit.
Only, this order was a little different.
Sanjeet was at a hospital when he placed it.
And while his order was being completed, he noticed this message from Blinkit “We’ve prioritised your order! We noticed your order is from a hospital. Sending you and your dear ones our warmest wishes.”
The message provided emotional support.
Blinkit prioritised the order.
It was delivered sooner than normal
Sanjeet loved it.
Share it online.
It went viral.
This small change made Sanjeet (and many others) smile.
As a product manager, I know that this feature looks simple. But identifying and solving real user problems is not straightforward.
Let’s talk a little more about that.
What is Blinkit
Before we go into the details, here is a short description of what Blinkit does.
Blinkit is an online grocery delivery service in India that offers quick delivery of daily essentials.
It is the country’s most used grocery delivery app.
How does Blinkit work?
Customers can order groceries, fruits, vegetables, and other daily essentials through the app or website.
Blinkit partners with local stores and delivery partners to fulfil orders.
Blinkit delivers orders within 10-25 minutes.
What does Blinkit deliver?
Fruits, Vegetables, Flowers, Meats, Pulses, Bakery products, Milk products, and Kitchen, home, and office items.
Why Does This Matter?
A general note about me: I am a PM and I love it. Which also means that every time I see something (new app, new feature, physical product, or basically any product) that I like or hate in the real world, I get into a mental tear-down mode. I start asking “What is the problem it’s solving? For whom is it solving? Is this the best solution for the problem?”
Then, I answer all of the questions. (It’s a really fun activity I recommend all PMs to do by the way..)
Blinkit’s hospital priority functionality is one such feature that got me excited.
So here is a summary of what I think about it:
TLDR
This is a great addition to their product for two reasons:
It is making customers really happy (especially at a time when they need positivity)
The cost to build the new functionality would have been low-medium.
#1 User Empathy
Hospital orders are often about necessity, instead of convenience.
Whether it’s food for a caretaker, snacks for a patient, or urgent supplies, time is critical.
The product team identified, understood, and solved a simple need.
In the process, they set a great benchmark for customer empathy.
#2 Differentiation and Customer Loyalty
Standing out in such a competitive online food/grocery delivery market is tough.
But, a simple, personalised message and a few algorithmic changes did the job for Blinkit. (Sanjeet’s story is proof, that customers are loving it and that Blinkit is getting the love they deserve!)
Not to forget—such instances build long-term trust, which makes users more likely to stick with and recommend the brand.
#3 Awareness and Marketing
Blinkit did not advertise or publicise this feature. Even if they did, I was not aware (and mind you, I’m a power user.)
One user loved it—loved it so much that he decided to post about it. That created mass awareness. For free.
That’s the thing. When you solve real problems, you don’t need to do marketing. Users will do it for you.
#4 High ROI—Low Effort, High Impact
The most important takeaway is that this small initiative has a fairly high ROI.
It doesn’t require too many operational changes—riders still pickup and deliver orders like they always do. User’s place orders like they always do.
It doesn’t need too many product changes—minor changes to the algorithm, maybe a few incentives (for store owners and riders to prioritise packing and collecting the orders), and short, positive message for the users in the app.
To be clear: I am not trivialising the solution. All of this takes work—careful planning, roll out, alignment, and execution. But at the scale at which Blinkit operates, the effort required to build this would probably be “small” or at the most “medium.”
For the impact it could potentially unlock, it is definitely a “should-do” in my eyes.
(Yes, it is easy to look at other’s product decisions and say it was a good decision. But believe me, the more you do this, the higher the chances that you make good decisions even for your problems.)
So getting back to the ROI of this feature…
Users in hospitals get deliveries faster. Riders don’t have to do anything different. Same for the store owners. Users are so happy they talk about it (like Sanjeet did.) Blinkit loves the publicity. Everyone wins.
Well almost everyone…
The only party that could lose something in this transaction is the “other” user.
The user who placed an order from home (or anywhere except a hospital.)
For no fault of theirs, their order is now lower on the priority list. A delivery partner will get allocated to their order only after all hospital orders are allocated.
But here is where it gets interesting:
Blinkit is already delivering orders very quickly. I get most of my grocery orders in under 10 minutes. I wouldn’t care if it took 20 instead of 10 minutes—ordering groceries is rarely urgent. And, if I were to guess, most others users will also not mind getting their deliveries a few minutes later.
Blinkit has large scale—high no. of users, delivery partners, and store owners. This helps minimise the impact. Every “other” order doesn’t necessarily have to wait. There’s a high chance there are enough idle delivery partners in most neighbourhoods with hospitals. In other words, there’s a high chance that the actual impact (increase in order delivery time) to “other” orders is low or even zero.
And finally, no. of users with hospital orders is way way lesser than “other” users. So even if there are few orders that have higher delivery times, no. of such orders will be relatively small.
In essence, the number of orders impacted, and the actual impact (in minutes) to those orders will be minimal.
While this makes sense theoretically, PMs at Blinkit probably did not decide to launch only based on theory.
It is fairly easy to test the above hypotheses, and Blinkit would have tested extensively before a public launch.
Final Thoughts
A simple addition to the product can make a big difference for users in urgent and emotionally draining situations.
But even simple additions need a lot of careful thought and planning:
Which user problem to solve, why, and how
What would it take to solve it
What business impact would it create
And that is how every decision (no matter how big/small) should be made. Just thinking about the right problem, impact, and the solution.
With that said,
Talk soon
—Sid
Adding to what sid said , loc data is required to serve and user explicitly knows that his loc is being shared.Blinkit is able to trace the type of location , they might be extracting from the building name or hit map providers to identify the type of location. Blinkit might be adding some validation conditions to remove false positives to avoid mis classification of customers, like what are the prev orders of the user ?, etc., So net net blinkit is not collecting anyother info from the user. They are just consuming the info better. Coming to privacy , i think its kind of okayish i feel in this scenario. Think about payment companies , banks. They know a lot about us. They can mine a ton of info about each of us. Cred takes access to your entire email account. But still its allowed. They are the custodians. They are given the responsibility of the data. So collecting info + responsibility should work i guess.
Blinkit’s initiative to prioritize orders from hospitals and offer emotional support is commendable, as it adds a human touch to their service. If consent was explicitly obtained, it aligns with data protection principles. However, on an ethical level, this raises important questions about user privacy. Identifying that an order is from a hospital indirectly reveals sensitive information about the customer’s circumstances, which could be considered personal health-related data.
Privacy laws such as India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDP Act) and globally recognized frameworks like GDPR classify health-related inferences as sensitive personal data that require higher standards of protection. Even with consent, companies must ensure data minimization—only collecting and processing what is absolutely necessary—and provide clear opt-out mechanisms.
A more privacy-conscious approach could be to prioritize orders silently without explicitly stating the reason or offer a general goodwill message to all users in priority zones. While personalizing customer experiences is valuable, it should always be balanced with ethical data handling practices.
On a lighter note everyone acknowledges Data privacy is a “Myth”