Quick Commerce, or Q-Commerce for short, has now arrived in Germany.
You see them more often in German cities: delivery drivers from food delivery services, mostly on their e-bikes, distinguished only by the different colors and logos of their company clothing. This trend started in the metropolises of Asia and America in recent years. The German DAX company Delivery Hero, which dominates the market in Asia under the Panda brand, became the pioneer of this development .
Especially in times of Corona, start-ups for online delivery services are sprouting up like mushrooms. While sales of groceries from the Internet were a modest 1 to 1.4 percent over the past five years, they increased to 2 percent in the pandemic year 2020. With a market volume of 139.4 billion euros, that still sounds comparatively low. But if you take a closer look at the numbers, it means an increase in e-food sales from 1.6 million (2019) to 2.7 million euros (2020). That equates to a whopping 70 percent increase in sales. If we look at the two leading sectors in online retail, textiles/accessories and consumer electronics, which already generate around 30 and 34 percent of their sales online respectively, it becomes clear how much potential still lies in the food sector.
Quick Commerce / Q-Commerce System
The Quick Commerce system operates on the principles of agility and flexibility to serve customers around the clock, as well as new technologies and user experience studies.
Besides the short delivery time, another feature that distinguishes Quick Commerce from other trading systems are the Dark Warehouses.These dark warehouses can be areas where more than 1,000 products can be stored in different locations, usually in an area of 300-700 square meters.
How fast has the trade developed?
Already Richard and Maurice McDonald, who opened the first McDonald's restaurant in 1940 and served meals with fast delivery to their customers, can be considered the forerunners of the Quick Commerce system. Quick Commerce was not created by directly adopting one system, but by combining and developing many systems.
E-commerce plays the biggest role in the rapid emergence and adoption of Quick Commerce. The desire to take this business to the next level, with increasing e-commerce requirements, renewed technologies and newly tested systems, is the beginning of Q-Commerce.
Examples of fast trading
Delivery Hero
The Swedish food company, founded in 2008 by Niklas Östberg, has been called Delivery Hero since 2011. DH Group, which later became active in other countries and cities, is known as one of the pioneers of fast commerce. Delivery Hero guarantees delivery in less than an hour and is also committed to the environment by sending its couriers to make deliveries, usually on bicycles.
Getir
Getir, which has entered the Q-Commerce market in a short time and expanded to Europe from Turkey, offers services in four different areas: Getirmarket, Getirfood, Getirwater and GetirMore - the service that people can use for weekly/monthly shopping.
In addition to delivery within minutes, Getir offers live delivery tracking, digital payment and 24/7 service. Getir has more than 400 warehouses in Turkey and will offer its service in Europe, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany and France from 2021.
Glovo
Glovo App is a Q-Commerce initiative with around 3.8 million users, operating in 21 countries and working with almost all major grocery chains. The Spain-based company has received $530 million in investments as part of its Series F Tour, making it the company with the largest investments in Spain to date.
Gorillas
Gorillas is a quick commerce company that has started delivering thousands of products in 10 minutes or less. Like Delivery Hero and Glovo, Gorillas, which delivers by bicycle, is a company that is against the use of plastic in general. It currently operates in eight European countries.
Yemeksepeti Banabi
Another Turkish company is Banabi, a spin-off of Yemeksepeti. Currently operating in selected provinces of Turkey, Yemeksepeti Banabi is another company that offers services within minutes and, for the first time in its field, offers the possibility of paying at the door. To access the Banabi application, it is enough to download the Yemeksepeti application.
On the future of Quick Commerce
Quick Commerce is the commerce style of the future. It is obvious that the biggest bottleneck of the e-commerce sector, which has been favored and expanded by the pandemic period, is the delivery time. Accordingly, an increase in the use of Quick Commerce will become inevitable.
A look at the above examples makes it clear how promising the future of Quick Commerce is.
Delivery Hero reports annual growth of 400 percent, which is about 40 times the growth of the iPhone company Apple.
Glovo, on the other hand, is the most invested company in Spain.
In Gorilla's Series B funding round, the company received 245 million euros, which elevates the company to the rank of a unicorn.
Quick Commerce Consideration
Right location, right choice
To deliver your products the fastest, you should choose the places where you can reach your customers most conveniently.
The right location is large and populous cities with high demand. However, the most important aspect of big cities is transportation. Most quick commerce companies prefer transportation by bicycle, both for ecological and health reasons. In addition, the cost of bicycles is lower than motorized couriers. In large cities, however, care should be taken to ensure that this is possible.
If you don't want to build your own team of couriers, you can also get help from third-party providers. UberEats, for example, also helps with supermarket delivery services.
Choose suitable products
Quick commerce companies typically offer products that consumers need on a daily basis or consume on a regular basis. Food, beverages, cosmetics, pet supplies or quick gifts are ideal choices for these lists.
Using the right software
The use of real-time tools for inventory management is an absolute necessity for a Quick Commerce company. The status of stocks, the timing of deliveries and the freshness of products in the warehouse require a management system that must be accurate and resilient.
Do you have any questions about “Quick Commerce”? Or would like to send us your feedback? If so, you can reach us via the contact form, by email to info@smartstore.com or call us from Monday through Friday between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. at +49 231 5335 0.