Former Sainsbury’s boss Justin King has taken a stake in the fast-growing grocery delivery app market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Snappy Group said Mr King was now a senior adviser to it and had made “a significant personal investment”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Dundee-based group’s Snappy Shopper app service offers goods from local convenience stores in 30 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Deliveroo does the same for big supermarkets, while a host of new app-based services deliver from their own warehouses in as little as 10 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Snappy Shopper does not claim to be as fast as fellow start-ups such as Weezy, Dija, Zapp and Getir.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, it does cover much more of the UK, with most of its rivals currently confined to parts of London and selected other cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It partners with convenience stores including Spar, Nisa and Costcutter, directing users of its app and website to the nearest local participant and charging \u00a31.95 for delivery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Fundamentally these shops are located in brilliant locations to serve their local communities,” Mr King told the Sunday Times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“They are fantastic distribution assets, but they don’t have the wherewithal to go online.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pandemic boost
The Snappy Group said its aim was to “democratise e-commerce technology by providing an affordable solution to local businesses, enabling them to compete in the fast-growing home delivery market”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It said Mr King, who was chief executive of Sainsbury’s between 2004 and 2014, would become a non-executive director once its current fundraising round was complete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since the coronavirus pandemic struck, the market for home delivery of groceries has become more intense, with many people preferring to avoid physical shops for fear of catching the virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While most of the big supermarkets run online shopping services of their own, they have also increasingly turned to apps such as Deliveroo to provide customers with a convenient way of getting a small number of items in a hurry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sainsbury’s, for instance, has recently expanded its partnership with Deliveroo, meaning that about 30% of the population can now choose from some 1,000 Sainsbury’s products within 20 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a tech platform, Snappy Shopper is attempting to level the playing field, by giving smaller players the same opportunity to reach shoppers at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It pre-dates the pandemic, since it was founded in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, Snappy Shopper does not employ any drivers. All deliveries are organised and carried out by its partner stores themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former Sainsbury’s boss Justin King has taken a stake in the fast-growing grocery delivery app market. The Snappy Group said Mr King was now a senior adviser to it and had made “a significant personal investment”. The Dundee-based group’s Snappy Shopper app service offers goods from local convenience stores in 30 minutes. Deliveroo does the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n