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Hyperlocal delivery platform magicpin experienced an overwhelming surge in demand at 9 am on Monday, causing its app to crash, leaving users temporarily unable to access the platform.
The increased traffic came after the firm announced its “tomatoes @ Rs70” initiative last week in partnership with National Cooperative Consumers Federation of India (NCCF) and Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC).
This led to magicpin’s tomato stocks depleting within the first 10 minutes, leaving many buyers struggling to order.
“The unexpected volume of traffic momentarily overwhelmed our systems, leading to the temporary crash of our app,” Anshoo Sharma, CEO and co-founder of magicpin, told Business Standard.
“We resolved the issue swiftly. We, however, sold out the entire inventory of limited tomato stocks with us within 10 minutes.
"There has been an overwhelming response from our users to the 'tomatoes@70 initiative' and we are working earnestly to meet the demand,” he said.
The company’s technology team has since addressed the issue and the platform is now operational again.
This comes at a time when tomato prices have been skyrocketing.
The fruit has recently seen its price cross the Rs 100 mark in retail markets across India.
Tomato prices in Delhi’s Azadpur wholesale market have increased 1315 per cent between June 2 and July 3, from Rs 451 a quintal to Rs 6,381 per quintal.
Arrivals have dropped by almost 40 per cent during the same period in Azadpur, Business Standard reported earlier.
Out of 10,000 kilograms (kgs) of tomatoes sold by NCCF, nearly 5,000 kg has been delivered by magicpin, and the company said it has also facilitated the initiative for other buyer apps on ONDC.
Under the initiative, there is a maximum purchase limit of 2 kg of tomatoes at Rs 140 per user per week to be delivered at home.
Magicpin said it witnessed overwhelming response and delivered over 2400 orders across more than 90 pin codes in Delhi-NCR in a week’s time.
