Global penetration of foodservice online ordering reached 8% in 2019. One of the main reasons, apart from general growth in digitalisation among the population, is the active performance of third-party delivery players and aggregators around the growing availability of restaurants offering reasonable prices due to the growing competition and high quality service levels.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of grocery and food delivery players have stepped up to serve changing shopper needs. Grocery ecommerce now makes up 3% of sales in Europe. From expanding services to forming new partnerships, intermediaries are being transformed into next-generation convenience hubs encompassing a variety of needs and unrivaled in speed and efficiency.
Interestingly, we saw the COVID-19 outbreak accelerate initiatives that were already being developed by retailers and brands, but also saw leading players come up with innovative solutions to become trusted partners both to brands and to consumers during trying times. The agility with which some of these intermediaries handled the COVID-19 crisis truly marked them as valued partners and will help them build a winning business model for the future.
A key challenge for brands and retailers remains around selecting the intermediary partners that best suit their needs, profitability KPIs and delivery reach. In this report we connect back to the origin of intermediaries, outline the key challenges they face, and showcase specific challenges.
High level takeaways include:
- The importance of leveraging partnerships to capture valuable learning and to better understand consumer needs.
- The reality that crises often accelerate planned initiatives and breed innovative solutions.
- In order to succeed, intermediaries need to achieve scale, grow baskets, and ensure retention.
Download the Report
