You’re in the middle of a fun-filled baking session at home with kids when you suddenly realise you don’t have the baking powder and the vanilla essence you need. You know you can’t step out when staying at home is the order of the day. Does that mean you give up the plan and hold your tears in frustration for not planning well? Take heart, a delivery is now only 30 minutes away in Dubai.
A new initiative in the emirate, Daily by talabat, ensures that your online order reaches you in less than 30 minutes after you’ve placed the requirement on the app.
“It is the first 30-minute delivery grocery concept in the region, which operates 24x7, at an affordable price point,” explains Ali Aldamanhori, UAE General Manager of Daily by talabat. “The app primarily caters to meet your everyday essentials at affordable prices, and with hyperfast delivery.”
Daily by talabat stores
From fresh produce, fruit, meat, bread and grains to baking supplies, treats, as well as cleaning materials, safety equipment, bathroom and personal hygiene supplies, and everything in between, you can order anything on the app from the different Daily by talabat stores spread across Dubai. “These stores or local warehouses are essentially mini-supermarkets without the shop fronts. They are highly automated and use data science for optimising items, offering an amazing customer experience, speed and affordability,” says Aldamanhori.
The stores were first launched in Kuwait last year and in Dubai in February. “In Dubai, we have five stores and cover more than 60 per cent of the emirate with deliveries within 30 minutes. We are also working on launching more stores to cover the remaining parts of Dubai, and expand to other emirates.” Daily by talabat uses the same fleet of delivery riders for grocery deliveries as for food deliveries.
A gap in the market
Aldamanhori says talabat’s expansion from food delivery to a grocery supplier has been a well thought out and a conscious step to fill a need in the market. “Last year, we identified a gap in the regional market, for a service which allowed people a hyperfast, reliable grocery supplier to order through,” says Aldamanhori. “Thus, Daily by talabat was created, and launched in Kuwait in December late last year. We launched Daily by talabat in late February in Dubai, and now have several stores throughout Dubai, covering 60 per cent of the city.
“Initially our promise was a 15-minute delivery, and we were meeting those targets. With Covid-19 hitting the region, we revised those targets to 30 minutes enabling us to deliver to a wider area in Dubai, which helped people to stay safe and stay at home.” Aldamanhori is confident to bring down the delivery time back to 15 minutes as talabat is able to scale up operations in the coming months.
Speed and quality
The concept is developed around speed and quality. “A customer opens the app and places an order on Daily by talabat. They are then allocated to the nearest rider and Daily by talabat store. Our specialised grocery-shoppers accept and receive the order and pick the grocery items in an optimised sequence to ensure speed, quality and accuracy. The order is then collected by our talabat rider, who then safely and quickly delivers the order to the customer,” explains Aldamanhori.
Talabat makes sure that all staff who are shopping for grocery at the warehouse, as well as riders, wear masks, gloves and use sanitisers. Their temperature is also checked. “We also fully disinfect and sanitise our stores regularly, and very soon we will be introducing temperature cards for all our staff who shop the groceries from the store and those who deliver them,” says Aldamanhori.
The feedback from consumers have so far been positive. “We have reduced the waiting time, so that’s a huge benefit for people,” says Aldamanhori. “We are constantly trying to find out what the customer wants from the searches and comments on the app, so that helps us to understand the market.”
What online shoppers are buying
Insights come from the delivery platform, Daily by talabat, has shown that consumer ordering trends have been redefined during the Coronavirus pandemic. Here are the findings:
Fresh, immunity-boosting foods such as tomatoes, onions, oranges and milk are in demand, overtaking bananas and energy drinks.
Home cooking has become widely practiced following the National Sterilisation Programme, with the baking category growing exponentially. The insights show that butter/margarine is up by 2,400 per cent, milk by 1,700 per cent, and cocoa powder 3,400 per cent over the past month.
Demand for masks, gloves and sanitisers have risen by 2,000 per cent, clearly signalling that safety still remains front and centre for the community
