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Relying on the “online” in the purchase of various products, from clothes, medicines and foodstuffs, has become a regular and indispensable matter, as there are many applications on smart phones that meet these requests after their importance emerged in particular during the Corona pandemic and beyond.
In particular, the “grocery applications”, occupy a large area of the daily transactions of individuals, and the demand for their use is still increasing day by day, knowing that their success depends on several factors, the most important of which are the speed of delivery, availability of the required products and the accuracy of their processing, reports a local Arabic daily.
Sources in the grocery application industry told Al-Qabas that the so-called “electronic grocery” in the Kuwaiti market is still witnessing a remarkable growth since the past two years, expecting that the volume of orders through it will reach between 50-100 thousand orders per day by the end of next year, after reaching an average of 12,000 orders per day two years ago most of which include vegetables and fruits, then drinks, sweets, snacks and baked products.
Ahmed Salama, one of the founders of the “Viz” application for grocery delivery, explained that what distinguishes one application from another is the speed of delivery of orders to consumers, as speed is one of the most important factors of modern day applications, where the delivery time is supposed to not exceed 15 minutes, in addition to the availability of goods and products of various kinds to meet the needs of different customers.
He pointed out that the speed of delivery depends primarily on the technology that is used in managing the application on the one hand, and how the orders are processed and the availability of products in the application stores on the other hand.
He believes that the purchasing habits of the individual and the families have changed, meaning that in the past, the visit to the association used to be at intervals and the purchase was in large quantities but fewer food products.
Salama touched on the most important challenges facing application owners, the most important of which is the lack of drivers, especially that the local market is wide and needs large numbers of drivers to meet the requests at the desired speed, which raised the level of salaries at present, which is one of the reasons that made these projects difficult to succeed since the cost of drivers’ salaries constitutes about 25% of the work budget, which is a large percentage, noting that the availability of an integrated team of highly qualified and modern technology will guarantee the success of the applications.
Bader Al-Ghanim, managing director of Talabat and t-Mart application, confirmed that the boom in the field of grocery delivery was launched during Corona and the period of closures, pointing out that the increase in demand and the expansion of spread also came after the consumer noticed the quality of the service provided in the field of “groceries” delivery which encouraged an increase in competition between applications in order to benefit the consumer and increase the quality of services provided.
He explained that the aspects of competition between the applications are focused on the speed of delivery, providing the best prices and the diversity of their products, as the last factor is the most important, which distinguishes one application from another, in addition to providing food products exclusive to the application, through contracts with external companies to provide those distinctive products. that the consumer needs.
Al-Ghanim said the current share of all companies working in the field of grocery delivery ranges between 10%-12% of the market as a whole, noting that legislation and infrastructure help the sector’s growth and expansion, noting that the lack of stores in Kuwait will affect the growth rate of these applications.
He stressed that there are ongoing consultations between the government and application owners regarding facilitating legislation, calling on the private sector to also contribute to the provision of warehouses and the development of real estate that serves the sector and put it on the market to cover the largest possible population of spaces.
Al-Ghanim added that the issue of saving time for the consumer is among the matters that have become of great interest to him, which makes us expect an increase in the number of applications during the next year.
7 factors which can lead to success of online purchases
— Fast delivery of orders
— Diversity of products in the stores of those applications
— The availability of a complete, efficient and sophisticated work team
— A sufficient number of drivers to ensure fast delivery in a short time
— The availability of a large number of stores that cover the largest amount of population areas
— The speed of processing the request and delivering it to the driver for delivery
— Control and control the whole delivery process
5 advantages of using grocery applications
— Grocery applications save time and effort for many families and individuals
— Avoid crowds in various associations and shopping centers
— Allows them to buy at any time during weekdays
— The wide variety of products offered by grocery applications
— Accuracy in processing orders