Shadowfax Announces Second COVID Care Program

Shadowfax, India’s leading crowdsourced tech-enabled platform for last-mile deliveries, has announced its second COVID care program for all its rider partners. Since its inception, Shadowfax’s core focus has been the wellbeing and growth of its partner community, while also ensuring the best delivery experience for its customers, safely. The company continues to be immensely invested in supporting its 100,000+ rider partner network, from implementing and enhancing safety measures to providing financial and medical assistance during this time of crisis.

Unlike the first and second waves, the third wave is more likely to have a steeper impact on the overall supply chain. Owing to the safety and convenience, customers continue to make more purchases through online channels, creating more demand for the delivery sector. Data collected internally indicates that grocery and pharma categories witnessed a 50% spike in delivery volume as compared to the last month. Shadowfax works with Flipkart Quick, Bigbasket, Zepto, Apollo among others in this space.

Shadowfax has witnessed rapid demand growth in its key customer categories

The company conducted a pilot survey within its delivery network to map the COVID positivity rate among partners. The results depicted a 5X increase in the positivity rate as compared to the numbers captured during the peak of the second wave.

Shadowfax has been running on-call COVID assistance and counseling for its rider partners and families. In addition to the COVID care program, the company has also partnered with Acko General Insurance to provide insurance benefits to its riders. This fund is established to compensate our rider partners for earnings lost due to COVID infection and help asymptomatic riders quarantine effectively, thereby ensuring a safe experience for all.

Talking about the initiative, Abhishek Bansal, CEO and Co-Founder, Shadowfax said- “At Shadowfax, we are fanatic about building a stringent and safe customer experience process. We have implemented policies to ensure that our network partners stay protected and in turn, the entire delivery cycle is guarded. We have built state-of-the-art technology to keep a tab on the spread of infection among our rider partners. Also, more than 95% of our network is fully vaccinated and for the others, we have been making required arrangements to help them get their doses at the earliest.”

In the past year, Shadowfax encouraged riders to get vaccinated, arranged vaccination drives, and introduced COVID benefits. In addition to promoting delivery partner hygiene practices, the company implemented several safety measures like “mask selfie”, no-contact delivery, etc. to safeguard both customers and riders.

All important information regarding safety protocols, testing, medical aid, doctors, hospitals, emergency contacts, financial aid, etc. is readily available on a dedicated section on Shadowfax Super App. In addition to a helpline number for riders, Shadowfax has also deployed a task force for vaccination and testing assistance.