ONE YEAR OF COVID-19 | How grocery delivery apps scored

05 March 2021 - 08:27 By iavan pijoos
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Save yourself the stress of going out and get your groceries delivered to your door.
Save yourself the stress of going out and get your groceries delivered to your door.
Image: 123RF/olegdudko

For most people, 2020 was a challenging year as Covid-19 took hold. More than 50,000 people have died in SA, thousands lost their jobs and the economy suffered tremendously. But there was a silver lining, as this was also a time when delivery apps were on the rise.

According to Toby Shapshak, editor and publisher of the SA edition of Stuff magazine, the best delivery app design was the Checkers Sixty60 app.

Shapshak said the app (now with one million downloads) stood out above the rest: “Many companies try to convert the website to the mobile device, but you can’t do that. You need to design for the mobile experience first and foremost.”

He was also very impressed by the Takealot app. “The services have been good and have really stepped into the gap and have grown brilliantly.

“It is not a market that is easy to own and capture with the enormous problems along the way, but I think Takealot has done a really good job.”

Shapshak said another app which stood out during the lockdown was the Pick n Pay Bottles app, which the company acquired in October last year. Initially an alcohol on-demand delivery app, the lockdown ban saw it switch to groceries.

Its customers aren’t limited by basket size like some of its rivals (30 items or less for motorbike delivery) as customers can order just one product, or place an extremely large order for delivery in one trip. Since Bottles moved to groceries in March, it's had more than 800,000 downloads, and signed up 400,000 registered users.

Donald Valoyi, CEO of Zulzi, an on-demand shopping and delivery app, said growth in the e-commerce space has been great.

He said that before lockdown his app had about 40,000 users but that has since grown to more than 200,000.

The app enables buyers to shop from multiple outlets in one go without leaving home.

Valoyi said that through the app, they were able to create more than 1,500 jobs, more than 500 of which were for drivers.

“It has been incredible to be able to create more jobs in the country and the appetite of people wanting to invest in the e-commerce space is very high,” he said.

Some of the challenges they faced was to skill many employees very quickly.

“Having to skill overnight and having to hire people at that pace to cope with the demands was very challenging.”

TimesLIVE


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