Inspired by the woman who signed up as a delivery partner for Blinkit, a Hyderabad man claims he signed up to work as a delivery executive for Zepto. Dinesh Nalam shared his experience of working as delivery executive for Zepto for a day. However, Zepto has denied that Dinesh signed up as a delivery partner with their platform, saying they have been able to match his social media details with any rider details.
X user Dinesh claimed that he signed up as a Zepto delivery rider partly to understand how the quick commerce industry works and partly to bolster his resume while applying for the company’s product management internship. His experience made him realise there are quite a few issues with Zepto, both technical and otherwise.
Some issues, some suggestions
To begin with, Dinesh tried to sign up as a part-time delivery agent “but got full time by customer care” for reasons that remain unexplained.
He said he was on call with Zepto support for over five hours, which he found unnecessary. “Let me call you if i need help and increase the buffer time to call drop offs,” the Hyderabad man suggested.
Next, he highlighted Zepto’s estimated earnings as unrealistic. The quick commerce platform claims that delivery partners can earn up to ₹40,000 a month.
{{/usCountry}}Next, he highlighted Zepto’s estimated earnings as unrealistic. The quick commerce platform claims that delivery partners can earn up to ₹40,000 a month.
{{/usCountry}}“It's hard to make 25,000 full-time, 40,000 is like god tier,” Dinesh opined, adding that Zepto should remove this “false hope” during the rider onboarding process.
Dinesh also called the document verification process “seriously flawed,” thanks to images getting blurred and re-positioned. His screenshot shows that people signing up to work with Zepto need to upload documents like Aadhar, PAN and driving license.
More concerningly, the Hyderabad man said he got “zero info” on what to do at the store and was forced to ask other delivery agents for help. Most refused, citing work pressure, but one person agreed to train him.
At the Zepto store, he found no place to sit and a broken water dispenser, highlighting poor working conditions for gig workers.
Finally, he found “quite a few technical issues” with the partner app and said that some riders resorted to making a WhatsApp group to update order status as the app was not working.
“I’d love to see how much I made after every delivery. I don't know how much I made after delivering 10+ orders,” he suggested.
“I found it hard to navigate the app during shift, to take a break, pause orders, see order history etc,” Dinesh said.
He did appreciate some things about the whole process, writing: “I liked the Zepto card (to show that I'm from Zepto), how cash orders are subtracted from riders' salaries, and how fast & efficient everything was.”