COVID-19 lockdown: Flipkart resumes operations in India

Walmart-owned Flipkart on Wednesday suspended its operations owing to the coronavirus outbreak. "Hello fellow Indians, We're temporarily suspending our services," Flipkart said in a message to its users. Now, a day after suspending its services, the Indian e-retail giant has said that it will resume its grocery and essentials services after assurance of safe passage of its supply chain and delivery executives by local law enforcement authorities.

"We have been assured of the safe and smooth passage of our supply chain and delivery executives by local law enforcement authorities and are resuming our grocery and essentials services later today," Flipkart Group CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy said in a statement.

Amazon, which has halted delivering all non-essential products in the country and disabled shipment of low-priority products, on the other hand said that it was working with the government to enable it to deliver essential items to its subscribers.

Flipkart along with Amazon India's Pantry service were suspended temporarily on Wednesday morning as India entered into a 21-day lockdown to contain the spread of coronavirus.

"Dear customers, due to local restrictions, we are not able to deliver. We are working with the government authorities to enable us to deliver essential items. We will communicate through e-mail/SMS when we have an update," Amazon Pantry page said on its page. It also offered customers the option of cancelling their orders.

(With PTI Input)