Dubai: Groceries that are just an online click away... UAE’s supermarket chains are starting to find out whether there is enough of an appetite among local consumers for such a convenience.
The Lulu Group will shortly be adding groceries to the list of merchandise that sold through its online portal (www.luluwebstore.com). Currently, the inventory is limited to hardware goods such as tech gadgets and home appliances. “Just recently, we went in for a major upgrade of the ecommerce portal, adding new features and ironing out some of the glitches that we had observed after we went live with it last year,” said Ashraf Ali, Executive Director at Lulu. “Adding groceries in the next month or two should, we hope, build up more traffic on to the website and offer a value-add for our traditional shopper base coming to the hypermarkets.
“For the near future, our ecommerce volumes are not going to be a major driver of our revenues... the build-up will be gradual. Currently, it makes up around 2 per cent of revenues, but that means there’s lot more we can aim for.”
There are two ways the grocery orders could be delivered post the transaction. The first mode would be to have a click-and-collect system, where the shopper places the order and will thereafter pick up the goods from designated Lulu outlets. In the second, the shopper can provide the timing options for the delivery to be made to his home.
There have been attempts by other vendors to offer local shoppers the convenience of buying groceries online. It does add to their costs, since deliveries of perishable commodities will have to be time-bound and that means having the logistics support on call for immediate deliveries. But, as of now, UAE’s online shoppers have preferred to do their clicks on gadgets and apparel rather than on fruits and vegetables.
But Ali believes that exclusive online deals on select merchandise — and not available at the brick-and-mortar locations — will start pulling in traffic to make it worth the while for both the vendor and consumer alike. “This is a consumer market where there’s always a response for the best perceived value deals — it’s something we have experienced at our supermarkets and should be no different in an online environment,” said Ali.
Where Lulu believes it has a cost advantage is having a store network straddling most of the UAE. And picking a few of these to be its storage and logistics points for deliveries would not entail too high a cost. This is the scale that Ali believes will be crucial when buying groceries online will become more the norm than the fad that it is now.
The UAE will be the launch market for the online grocery offering, followed by Qatar and then Kuwait.