A few years ago, I was lucky enough to get a hand-me-down laptop. My older daughter bought a new laptop and gave her old one to me. That laptop is still my primary laptop, even though it’s often quite slow.
If I open a browser after restarting my laptop, it takes more than five minutes for images and text to appear. I’ve learned to be patient and adapt to the quirks of my laptop. It helps, of course, that I’m old enough to remember the slow computers of the 1990s. Compared to them, my current laptop is Usain Bolt on steroids.
But my laptop is a snail compared to the newest laptops on the market. Not only do these laptops have lightning-fast processing power, they also arrive at your door faster — especially if you live in India.
An X user named Sunny Gupta recently shared his experience buying a laptop through Flipkart Minutes, a quick commerce service that the Indian company Flipkart recently introduced to a few neighborhoods in Bengaluru.
When he placed the order, Gupta was told he would get his new Acer Predator laptop in seven minutes. But after completing the purchase, he checked the tracking page and learned that his delivery order would be “slightly delayed.” Poor guy now had to wait 12 minutes!
The laptop actually arrived in 13 minutes, taking 86 percent longer than the initial estimate, but Gupta seemed quite pleased. So did some other social media users, expressing pride in the speedy delivery. "This is my new India,” wrote one person. “A service like this can only be dreamed in Western countries.”
This is true. In the United States, for example, if you want a new laptop in 13 minutes, you have to steal one. I wouldn’t recommend that, of course, because I’ve heard that Wi-Fi reception can be quite spotty in prison.
If you’re seeking traditional delivery in America, you might be able to get same-day delivery, but only if you live near a store or warehouse. If you choose to go to a brick-and-mortar store, you’ll spend an hour or two, including driving time, talking to a salesperson, waiting for the laptop to be brought from the stockroom, and getting distracted by the newest iPhone that costs more than your car.
Flipkart Minutes was created to provide competition to other quick-commerce platforms such as Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart and Zepto. Consumers can receive groceries, electronics and other products in as little as eight minutes. These platforms achieve amazing delivery times by opening “dark stores” in various neighborhoods. These small warehouses carry numerous items for delivery only. A big city like Mumbai has several hundred dark stores. In America, only the city of Houston, Texas, can boast that many dark stores, but mainly because of power outages.
Gupta’s laptop purchase drew many comments online, including one from a person who wrote, "No one asked for a 7-minute laptop delivery, but I am happy to see the growth of Indian e-commerce and its increasing competitiveness.”
If everyone operated under the “no one asked” policy, there would be very little progress in the world. Did anyone ask to be able to heat up food in seconds? Did anyone ask to be able to watch football on a phone? Did anyone ask to be able to follow Taylor Swift without being arrested for stalking?
Whether these delivery platforms thrive depends largely on whether enough people find their service useful. As for me, I enjoy going to stores and comparing one product with another. I don’t need a laptop to arrive at my door in minutes. It would be nice, however, to have a laptop that starts in under a minute.
