Flipkart temporarily suspends its services amid COVID-19 lockdown

The lockdown in India owing to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak has forced Walmart-owned Flipkart to suspend its services in india temporarily.

Flipkart office shots. For stock, by Hemant Mishra/MINT (Mint)

Walmart-owned Flipkart on Wednesday announced that it has suspended services in India due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The company announced the news on its e-retail website and in its app as well. "Hello fellow Indians, We're temporarily suspending our services...These are difficult times, times like no other. Never before, have communities stayed apart to stay safe. Never before, has being at home meant helping the nation," Flipkart said in a message to its users.

The move comes owing to the coronavirus lockdown in India. (Flipkart)

The move comes owing to the coronavirus lockdown in India. (Flipkart)

"We urge you to stay home to stay safe...We will get there. And we will get through. Together," the company added.

The Flipkart website apart from showing the message also gives information about the advisory issues by the government of India regarding COVID-19. The homepage includes links to the government's information portal, which apart from detailing government circulars also gives a status of COVID-19 outbreak in various states.

It is worth noting that while Flipkart has removed listing of all products from its website, it is still offering payment services. This means that users can pay for their mobile bills and utility bills using Flipkart's app and its website.

The e-retailer's move follows an announcement by Amazon India wherein the company said that it was temporarily halting the sales of all non-essential products in India in order to prioritise the customers' needs at a time when the country was in a state of lockdown.

"To serve our customers' most urgent needs while also ensuring safety of our employees, we are temporarily prioritizing our available fulfilment and logistics capacity to serve products that are currently critical for our customers such as Household Staples, Packaged Food, Health Care, Hygiene, Personal safety and other high priority products. This also means that we have to temporarily stop taking orders and disable shipments for lower-priority products," Amazon wrote in a blog post.