This online service, launched in Moscow in 2019 under the name of Lavka
(Counter
), by Russian internet giant Yandex, grew exponentially there during the spring 2020 lockdown, has grown steadily since and has been emulated elsewhere in the world.
Before the pandemic, we were […] a fun gadget. After the pandemic, everything changed, especially at the beginning, when people were distraught.
The delivery sites of the main supermarkets had then tripped, overloaded.
A part of the customers are redirected towards ultra-fast delivery by bicycle couriers of purchases in smaller quantities, prepared in dark stores
closed to the public, avoiding waiting days for delivery of larger stocks.
Since then, many Muscovites have kept these new habits.
When you come home from work and wonder what to eat, you can either have a prepared meal delivered or order products and cook yourself.
Her family now only physically visits the supermarket once a week, or even every other week, Lavka delivering drinks, canned food and fresh produce.
Mary Levocz, 34, an English teacher in Moscow, uses it for extra shopping and cans of water, that from the tap is not drinkable, which she struggles to climb to the fourth without an elevator.
I started using it at the start of winter it was snowing and I didn’t always want to go out in the cold.
Since then, she has ordered several times a week.
Typical customers are rather young, connected, well-off and want to make targeted purchases. While the prices are on average higher than in the mainstream supermarket, some basic products are close to cost.
In the fourth quarter of 2020, the service grossed more than four billion rubles (C $ 64 million), or 18% of all of Yandex’s taxi and meal delivery business.
Today, several major Russian cities are served, as well as Tel Aviv. The launch in Paris is scheduled for the second quarter of the year, before London.
In a warehouse in Moscow, Koutmane Kanatbek Ououlou arrives with a yellow and black backpack and is immediately tasked with delivering two orders side by side.
<q data-attributes="{"lang":{"value":"fr","label":"Français"},"value":{"html":"On peut gagner entre trois et cinq mille roubles par jour (33-55euros at the current rate) “,” text “:” You can earn between three and five thousand rubles per day (33-55euros at the current rate) “}}” lang = “fr”>You can earn between three and five thousand rubles per day (50-80 Canadian dollars) with a self-employed status, says this 18-year-old Kirghiz.
From one continent to another
On the other side of the planet, in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, same scene on the premises of the start-up company Fridge No More (You run out of fridges
).
A delivery man with a blue and white backpack leaves to deliver a customer two streets away, before returning in a few minutes. Here, the founders wanted all the workers of the company to be employees.
For the two founders, also Russian, the adventure began in 2019, when Anton Gladkoborodov, 40, was in New York and Pavel Danilov, 38, in Moscow.
We knew that service was appreciated in Moscow – why not in New York?
They too, the pandemic gave them wings. The company raised more than $ 15 million this spring and plans to open dozens of sites in the next twelve months in New York.
According to analytics firm PitchBook, more than $ 14 billion has been invested in delivering groceries around the world since early 2020, most of it in 2021.
With COVID-19, demand has exploded for grocery delivery
, notes Olivier Salomon, from the consulting firm AlixPartners.
<q data-attributes="{"lang":{"value":"fr","label":"Français"},"value":{"html":"Mais on ne sait pas encore très bien ce qui va rester des innovations qui ont émergé au cours des derniers 18month. What will take precedence, the speed of delivery or the breadth of the offer? It is difficult to do both “,” text “:” But it is not yet clear what will remain of the innovations that have emerged over the last 18 months. What will take precedence, the speed of delivery or the breadth of the offer? It is difficult to do both “}}” lang = “fr”>But it is not yet clear what will remain of the innovations that have emerged over the past 18 months. What will take precedence, the speed of delivery or the breadth of the offer? It’s hard to do both, he said.
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