How grocery shopping apps like Grofers and Big Basket are capturing market?

Not such a long time ago, the major part of a Sunday Morning and quite some time throughout the week of much of the average middle class, middle aged dad and mom would be spent on one thing and one thing alone , the veritable , all important “grocery shopping”. Whether it was the reluctant summer afternoon trip to the local ‘baniya’ or the standing in queues at the checkout of that giant super market a number of blocks away, it had to be done.

Well, a man’s got to eat, right? Whereas in smaller towns and cities , especially among the older generation , the ‘morning bazaar’ remained a form of much sought after socializing , the younger working couples thought of it as something of an essentiality and took turns in avoiding that trip. Thankfully, as so typical of technology, it caught here too. First came the helpful, competitive grocers who will take your order over the phone, and have the products delivered to your home, but the process was tedious and not transparent, in addition to being unreliable and somewhat unpractical.

Then came websites, most of them now closed, where you could log in, place your order and voila, the delivery boy would be knocking soon, but that had challenges of its own too .The main of which was to persuade a buyer to open the computer, log on, browse the sites, order the product, pay etc while being stationed at one place. This was cumbersome and unpractical, especially for shopping for potatoes and tomatoes. Since fresh food shopping has inherent challenges with stocks running out, being notified for the same was difficult for the shopper and expensive for the vendor.

Like Kevin O Leary of the famous American Funding TV series ‘Shark Tank’ will say with crooked smile, “There Has to be a Better Way”, and so there are. These came in the form of customized , effective and extremely well designed mobile grocery shopping apps such as Grofers and Big Basket that quickly caught the imagination of the urban , overworked , not looking forward to ‘aaloo’ shopping middle class and became the ‘home screen app’ of a lot of them. With one of the Bollywood’s most iconic actors endorsing one of them, you can well imagine that they’ve gotten their act right. With more than a million active users for the two foremost grocery apps – The Bengaluru based Big Basket and the Gurgaon Based Grofers alone and the big eCommerce giants trying to explore the space, the grocery apps are there to stay and do better.

Moreover, they have created a trend to shop grocery, vegetable and day to day needs online in India. So, now there are also, a number of great grocery app builder companies offering the regular traditional grocers to take the next leap and take their business online and on mobile. Let us try and analyze a few pointers as to why these eCommerce mobile apps have become such a rage in such a short period of time.

Why these grocery apps become so popular

Range of Items

This is one of the most attractive propositions of a mobile app. You can virtually see a humongous range of products, with variants available at your fingertips at the go. In fact Grofers claims to offer more than 175,000 products through its app and big basket a modest 18,000 but imagine which single grocery store will give you such options? The great variety of products available across brands and categories is one of the most important and attractive value propositions of any mobile app and these apps kill it there, no doubt.

Quality of Products

Most of the time, shopping on mobile grocery apps is like cherry picking, only, somebody else is doing it . The delivery personnel are sensitized and trained to try and pick up the best products, especially loose products when those orders come. In any case these apps invariably tie up with the best known brands with proven quality so they can leverage on each other’s good will and advertising resources. The quality of the products delivered by the grocery apps are always top notch. One of the pertinent reasons is also that there is always a ‘no questions asked’ returns included in the app and if a product is asked to be returned for want of quality , it is expensive and cumbersome for the app company to do so.

User Experience

All these apps are extremely well designed with state of the art, modern, customer centric functionalities and are extremely easy to use, even by people who are not really adept with the mobile app environment. Care is taken that the apps are simple, menu driven and self explanatory.

Discounts and Savings

Another unique aspect of the grocery shopping apps is that they are always offering some discount or saving proposition which is extremely attractive for the average middle class user. These apps leverage and co-ordinate with the sale strategies of the brands they offer and come with brand and usage promotions from time to time, giving then a great customer recall.

Customer Service

Grocery shopping apps rely heavily on customer service since the products they deliver are traditionally the products that the Indian consumer has always bought after careful visual selection. In the absence of the “look, touch and squeeze” feel, it is very important for the apps to match up to what the customer has thought he will get. The nature of perishability and subsequent unavailability of some products also have to be dealt with deft and affective customer care. These apps have really aced it as of now.

App

These two Apps themselves are quite attractively designed with well placed call to action tabs and provide a seamless and efficient selection and checkout process. The availability of multiple payment choices is quite attractive to the buyers too. For many perishable products, the prices are updated daily, that makes the whole experience quite transparent and effective.

Website and App speed

Although Grofers is exclusively available on app, Big Basket, for now is available both on the web and the mobile app versions. It is easy to see, that whereas the web version might have some advantages for some, that app is far superior in terms of engagement, ease of use and the push notifications that update you on your order.

Easy exchange and Returns

One of the prime USP’s that give a lot of comfort and credibility to these apps is that they are quite forthcoming in guaranteeing your purchase for quality and quantity and are quite open to exchanging or returning the products. No questions asked. This gives them a unique trustworthiness and acceptability in the market.

Attractive Packaging

Both these apps pack your products in sustainable, sturdy packaging, normally cloth bags or cardboard cartons and don’t even charge you for it! This makes the entire experience better because it is a fact that people do not want to pay for the plastic bags, some don’t want to use it altogether.

Quick Delivery

These apps have a great delivery model and the products, since they are procured from vendors nearest to you are delivered quite quickly and effectively. Sometimes they offer preferred delivery on request too. This element takes away the pain and complication of carrying usually rather heavy grocery bags home, especially in multistoried buildings and by women.

Seeing the above unique benefits of mobile grocery apps, it is quite clear that they are increasing rapidly in popularity and provide a great successful and sustainable business proposition. Would you like to explore the opportunity of having a grocery shopping app for yourself through the services of specialized grocery mobile app builder company? Oho Shop takes the pain out of your grocery app building requirements – Click here for a free trial.