Farmstead to Partner With Companies for End-to-End Grocer eCommerce

Farmstead, an online grocer and tech firm, is partnering with several real estate and last-mile delivery companies to build an end-to-end, same-day, eCommerce operations solution for grocers, Supermarket News reported.

The solution will come with “everything a grocer or retailer needs” to start a dark-store delivery operation in just a few weeks, according to the report.

That includes application programming interfaces (APIs) to write and focus on customer orders, warehouse space, optional grocery inventory sourcing and stocking, a Grocery OS software stack to manage order intake, inventory management with an artificial intelligence (AI) prediction engine and communications, optional dark store labor, last-mile delivery and optional inclusion on other delivery service marketplaces, the report stated.

“Right now, rapid grocery delivery comes with high markups and fees, and Farmstead wants to change that,” said Farmstead Co-Founder and CEO Pradeep Elankumaran in the report. “Grocery OS helps grocers vastly improve efficiency, so they can eliminate fees and make money on eCommerce without passing fees down to customers, and without relying on expensive third-party services. The combination of Grocery OS and dark stores enables faster delivery, a much larger delivery radius and higher profits per order, while customers get lower prices. We’ve been doing this ourselves for several years and are now offering it to other grocers.”

The Grocery OS from Farmstead was initially rolled out in 2020 as a software-only solution. It had the ability to cut down delivery operational costs and boost delivery times, according to the report. Elankumaran said the new solution improves upon customers’ need for a unified tool, removing barriers to getting new delivery operations to market.

In other news, Farmstead rolled out its Refill and Save loyalty program out earlier in the year. The program offers discounts on some staples for repeated purchasing.

Read more: Farmstead’s Refill Discount Program Reframes Grocery Loyalty

The product also gives suppliers a way to get items recommended to Farmstead customers through the company’s newsletter in exchange for a manufacturer chargeback.