The next time you visit a mall near you, try to time how long it took you to get from the main entrance to the parking space to the food court using an escalator. Order your favorite food from the restaurant of your choice and wait until the counter staff hands over the food. Now, add up the total time. Whatever time it took for you is fine because you were not in hurry. However, the same cannot be said about delivery boys from Swiggy or Zomato, or similar food-ordering apps. A delivery boy’s race does not end here. He grabs the food packet from the restaurant’s counter, runs back from the top floor to the basement parking, picks up his bike, and drives fast to the exit gate of the mall. In this mad rush, he still wastes about 15 minutes just collecting a food packet from the restaurant that was promised to be delivered to you in 30 minutes. To deliver it on time and keep his commission/pay for the delivery, he risks his life racing through a congested city–sometimes even breaking the traffic rules.
Talking about groceries, our supermarkets have always had a consistent old-fashioned layout for years: shelf-stable items on long aisles in the center, fresh produce, and dairy products on the right or left perimeter, and last-minute attention-grabbing items near the billing counter. These stores were designed in a way that encouraged customers to dwell in the stores longer, explore more items, and ultimately buy more products. But, with the rapid growth of app-based grocery delivery services, our daily shopping has changed a lot and in the same way, a grocer’s primary customers have also changed. Now, a grocer’s primary customers do not have to be the usual customers, who walked into the stores from nearby neighborhoods. They can now be shopping from far-off places in the city through an online grocery shopping app. With this huge change in the way people do their daily shopping now, grocery stores must redesign their stores and make their processes fast in a way that helps delivery fleets, which are taking orders from their clients, but who are actually remote or virtual customers of the stores only.
Online Food & Grocery Delivery Need More Physical and Digital Backing
According to a Business Standard report, the market for online food delivery in India is anticipated to grow by $716.53 million between 2022 and 2026, growing at a CAGR of 28.13% during the forecast period. India’s quick grocery delivery segment (within 10-15 minutes) on the other hand would become the new hot area of competition and is set to witness 15X growth by 2025, reaching a market size of nearly $5.5 billion. With so much potential, delivery is no more an add-on service but a growing market demand for both restaurants and grocery stores in India and across the world, whether they are located in malls or elsewhere. We have seen how food and grocery delivery became the lifeline for millions of eateries and grocers during the lockdown, and it continues to play a significant role in the growth of the entire industry. While eateries, grocery stores, and delivery apps. continue to improve their delivery processes by experimenting with new ideas such as drone delivery, cloud kitchens, connected distribution hubs, and API-based inventory integrations, other stakeholders like shopping malls and large supermarkets might as well contribute to improving the entire ecosystem. This would ultimately profit them in maximizing their sales.
Customers now prefer to have their purchases delivered to their homes rather than having to walk the entire mall or supermarket to pick out a few items and then wait in billing lines. For this changing expectation and demand, a more streamlined design of the supermarkets can facilitate faster shopping for customers and also help the delivery fleets of grocery delivery apps as well for faster deliveries. We have the biggest malls and supermarkets in our cities, but they are still not all equipped to cater to the growing demands of e-commerce for everyday grocery and food orders. One of the simplest things shopping malls can perhaps help with is by moving food courts and restaurants, which are often on the top floor, closer to the ground floor to enhance accessibility for these delivery fleets of Swiggy, Zomato, and other app-based food delivery services. They can also create dedicated pickup areas and drive-throughs, similar to fast food restaurants, for online orders which would also help reduce the rush on the restaurant’s counter.
Similarly, grocery shops in our neighborhoods still operate in the fashion they used to operate about a decade ago without upgrading to the consistently changing expectations and demands of the customers and time. Try to think back to the last time you went to a major grocery store in your area and try to recall how long it took you to search and pick the items you wanted to purchase and then how long it took you in the billing line at the checkout counter. Can the process be made more efficient, time-saving, and convenient for you? The answer is yes! These supermarkets can certainly be redesigned and digitally upgraded in such a way that customers’ smartphones can play an important role by showing them the exact location of each item in the stores. This would help reduce unnecessary wandering of the customers, struggling to find what items they wanted to buy, and lead to shorter billing lines at checkout counters.
Other than this, curbside pickup can probably be one of the most innovative solutions for catering to the changing demands of customers. It is relatively easy for the stores to offer curbside pickup to their direct consumers and to their remote customers as well (through the delivery fleets of grocery shopping apps). A customer places the order online either through an app. After the order is placed, the retailer processes it and notifies the customer when their items are ready for pickup from the store. The customer heads to the store’s pickup location – maybe while driving back from the office or while driving back from the mall. Then, a retail associate will come out to meet the customer and give them their orders. While curbside pickup has already been implemented by several retail chains and supermarkets in many European countries and in the US, it has not caught on in India.
Picture this: you’re at watching a movie at a mall, and as you’re leaving, someone from the supermarket or grocery shop there meets you at the exit gate of the mall with your groceries all packed and ready. The ease of buying like this is simply unimaginable.
(The author of this article is an accomplished professional in marketing communication and business operations. She has graduated from the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, and is based out of Hyderabad).