More female delivery agents are getting jobs in Flipkart, BigBasket, Amazon

As the big billion day sale is coming, Flipkart is changing the lives of women. A state-level football player for several years, 24-year-old Khatun, joined East Bengal Football Club's newly formed women's team as goalkeeper some months ago. Covid-19 - and the lockdown - put a stop to that, hitting her income and forcing Khatun to take up a job at Flipkart as a data entry operator.

She switched to the large goods supply chain, which involves visiting customer locations to deliver items. A typical day starts at 5 am when she gets in some football practice, then reporting to work at 7am, after which she and a driver set off with the consignments. She averages 15-16 deliveries a day--everything from washing machines to beds-and has a personal best of 23 deliveries, a record for her hub. The job gives her a lot of satisfaction, and she hopes to continue with it in some form, even after returning to football once the pandemic is over.

""I found an indoor job a little boring. An opportunity to be part of the delivery network excited me. We moved out of our village over a decade ago as we faced a lot of taunts because I was a girl playing football. But my family supported me, and even after my father's sudden death, I continued. Now I don't let any jibes bother me," she said.

Women such as Khatun are still in the minority but their numbers are gradually scaling up across the ecommerce ecosystem. Several Flipkart's fulfilment centres (FCs) such as Farrukhnagar in Haryana and delivery hubs in areas like Wadi, Nagpur, and hubs in Howrah, Kolkata, have women 'wishmasters,' which is what field staff are called. Others like BigBasket, Swiggy and Amazon are also hiring more women delivery agents. Amazon set up an all-women delivery station in Gujarat last month.