Buying food in a way online Is the order of the day. It saves us time, without having to go anywhere and you can also choose the product you want with just one click. Given this situation, which has developed even more due to the pandemic, they have been born startups o ghost supermarkets who intend to take the business of selling food online even further. Two of these examples are Say y Block. Do you want to know what is special about them and why they are rising like foam?
Physical purchase vs online purchase
Thanks to (or because of) the pandemic, the business of sending groceries home has reached exorbitant levels and although the health crisis is over, many people have already gotten into the habit of purchasing their purchase over the Internet. For convenience and speed they will continue to do so. In addition, this has led to the emergence of new operators that intend to compete with traditional chains.
But in order to stand out and make a name for yourself in our country, you have to create something unique that contributes something different to other businesses. The motto on which new startups are based is the short time it takes to bring the products to your own home, just ten minutes by bike.
How do these ghost supermarkets work?
The two growing companies that we are going to tell you about have the same modus operandi, despite the fact that Say was born in London y Block en Barcelona. Both consist of the opening, at a great rate, of small shops closed to the public called “dark stores”In different areas of the city from where we can serve the client in a very short radius of time.
These ghost supermarkets they work like warehouses and, as soon as the consumer makes the purchase through the App, workers prepare to take it to your home in just ten minutes. This is the most comfortable for you, since you don't have to go anywhere and if you don't have time to go to the supermarket, at a specific moment you can send your shopping list to those delivery people, quickly, from your own home .
The key factor that has made this expansion of mini-warehouses possible is the evolution of the real estate market, since now there are multiple closed premises in city centers, due to Covid-19, which have been taken advantage of, in addition to the fact that their rental prices have dropped.
Say, your purchase in ten minutes
Say already has a presence in UK, France and Spain. Also in London It is growing by leaps and bounds, and in Madrid, although it has been operating for a very short time, a high rise in door-to-door sales is also expected. Workers have Indefinite contract and the cost of shipping home is only 0,99 euros. Likewise, they already have 6 "dark stores" in the capital and intend to open more and expand rapidly to Valencia, Barcelona, Seville and Malaga.
Block, the app for the neighborhood of the future
En Block, which uses a very similar system, workers also sign a Indefinite contract and they already have 7 shops between Barcelona, Madrid and Milan. Although, of course, they intend to continue opening dozens of stores for Spain, Portugal and Italy.
Of the multiple ghost supermarkets that exist, this differs mainly in that it is mounted by former Deliveroo and UberEats employees, in which does not charge for shipping and in which it is committed to including in its assortment of products food produced by local brands.
After knowing these two startups With big and ambitious goals that still have a long way to go, we wonder if these businesses can become a threat to traditional supermarkets, since the advantages of this type of remote purchase are numerous.
And it is that, although now it is barely noticed, in a few years it may end up damaging the big businesses of always due to the facilities that the ghost supermarkets. And what do you think of this? Do you think the big supermarkets are going to be affected? Would you buy through Dija and Blok?
