After reports of its New York City launch circulated in August, Buyk, a 15-minute grocery delivery service founded by the creators of Russian grocery delivery service Samokat, announced Tuesday (Sept. 14) that it is officially launching in the city. Beginning in Manhattan, the company intends to reach all five boroughs by the end of the year, expanding to additional United States cities in 2022. In June, the company announced a $46 million seed funding round.
Read more: Grocery Roundup: E-Grocery Innovations Meet Demand for Frictionless Convenience
“Three things are central to the Buyk business model: hyperlocality, execution and, of course, our proprietary technology,” CEO and Co-founder Slava Bocharov said in a statement. “With this tech, we can assemble the ideal assortment for each area down to the finest detail, we can optimize picking strategies to ensure your order leaves the dark store almost as soon as you’ve put your smartphone down, and we can study the best routes to shave vital minutes off delivery to ensure your order arrives when you need it.”
The Context
As the online grocery space has grown more competitive since the start of the pandemic, one metric on which many services are competing is delivery time. Where once 2-hour grocery delivery was a promise that would impress most online grocery shoppers, the bar has been raised.
Instacart has been expanding its 30-minute fulfillment capabilities, most recently partnering with Kroger on half-hour convenience deliveries. A range of grocers utilizing a system similar to Buyk’s, a network of dark stores supplying a micromobility fleet, have been emerging to promise 15- or even 10-minute deliveries.
You may also like: Kroger, Instacart Launch 30-Minute Convenience Delivery as Consumers Expect Speedy Fulfillment
What Consumers are Saying
While online grocery delivery has picked up since March 2020, most consumers are still limited to shopping in stores or ordering for pickup. Data from PYMNTS’ study What Consumers Expect From Their Grocery Shopping Experiences, a collaboration with ACI Worldwide, find that only 23% of grocery shoppers are buying online to have the products delivered to their house.
Those who are utilizing online grocery options, however, have speed and convenience on their mind. The survey found more than three-quarters of online grocery shoppers list ease and convenience as a factor, and 57% say they choose the channel in part because it is faster.
Related news: NEW DATA: Digital Features Can Help Grocers Win Over 43 Percent Of Shoppers
What Experts are Saying
The rise in online grocery may have begun with the coronavirus outbreak, but as the low adoption rate shows, there is much room for growth going forward.
“I think back, pre-COVID, nobody woke up in the morning and said, ‘Oh, you know what I need? I need a new grocery solution,’” Bentley Hall, CEO of Bay Area grocery and meal kit delivery company Good Eggs, said in an interview with PYMNTS. “And in many ways, the pandemic forced or required everybody to ask that question. I don’t think that’s going to change — I think that question will be asked more and more frequently.”
See also: Good Eggs’ Grocery Delivery Expands the Concept of Local Eating
Food eCommerce 2.0: Freshly Anticipates Ultra-Personalized Future
Additionally, this trend extends beyond the grocery category. As Mike Wystrach, co-founder and CEO of Nestlé-owned meal delivery service Freshly, told PYMNTS, food eCommerce businesses are now beginning to harness the data that the recent boom has provided to create experiences that meet each individual consumer’s needs and preferences, getting increasingly specific with menu and platform innovations.
“We see a massive shift in food and eCommerce,” he said. “Whether it’s the rise of companies like Freshly, DoorDash or Uber Eats, this only scratches the surface of the eCommerce boom that is heading for the food industry — this is what I call food eCommerce 1.0. What I’m really excited about now is this idea of food eCommerce 2.0.”
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