Yeah, more delivery/pickup issues in the last two months than in the last two years. Delayed deliveries, no pickups even after five days across Delhivery/Ecom Express/Amazon. Even Amazon orders are being canceled and returned. At first, I attributed this to post-Ramadan blues/vacations and/or limited working hours due to the heatwave. But then Swiggy/Zomato/Uber also became unusable with Swiggy turning off their ad-hoc delivery service entirely for a number of weeks.
Turns it out it wasn't any of the reasons I thought it might have been, it was because of rising fuel costs. The delivery people simply stopped showing up to work because it was no longer profitable for them to be on the road. The locals here are notorious for preferring the simple life. They aren't go-getters or do-itters as you'd see in other larger cities. They're perfectly content with earning a few hundred in a day because it means a couple of days off for them to relax at home before they need to step out again.
Things are slowly returning to normal though. PIckups are taking two days instead of five, and Amazon packages are arriving when they should be. Point of reference, I'm in central Hyderabad and we consider ourself the aforementioned locals, haha.
