Arabnet Arabnet

Would you shop for your groceries online? That’s what we set out to answer in our last poll. We were curious to know how viable this segment of the market is and figure out what drives and hampers its success. That is to say will people buy, when, and why. Globally, a number of internet companies as well as brick to click establishments have been scrambling to get on the bandwagon with varying degrees of success. Perhaps the most obvious examples are Amazon’s AmazonFresh and Walmart’s Walmart To Go respectively. A number of studies roughly agree that the number of shoppers that opt to buy online hovers around 10%. The expected growth for this market is approximated at a 26% compounded annual rate.

Locally, online grocery shopping hasn’t been as popular as its sibling online food delivery. The number of local services that we are aware of are 5: Superetti in Algeria, Sallaty.jo in Jordan, in addition to all of Beqala, El5odary and Minbetna from Egypt. If you know of any other services, make sure you give them a shout out in the comments section.

Looking at the results, we are pleasantly surprised to find out that a very healthy 23% of respondents expressed their unwavering faith in online grocery ordering. That’s more that one in five people who are willing to never set foot in a supermarket again. At 21.8%, the second most popular answer, people acknowledged their need to sometimes wander supermarket aisles to figure out what they need. The fourth and fifth spot were split evenly with 19.2% of the votes. In those two instances respondents stated that their decision to shop online was dependent on the price, where an extra charge is out of the question for them, and on the type of items they are looking to buy. Finally, 10.3% said that it depended on how fast it was delivered, and 6.4% would resort to buying online only if it were an emergency and that they were practically forced into it.

Would you shop for groceries online?

So there you have it, if you’re looking to start your own online grocery service, your pressure points are cheap pricing and speedy execution. And don’t sweat it if people still resort to buy straight from the store at times, that seems to be inevitable when it comes to groceries.

While we’re on the subject of food, don’t miss our review of Taste of Beirut 2014, A Delicious Medley of 16 Different Flavors. While we’re on the subject of polls as well, we encourage you to participate in our latest one: How Are People Using Smart TVs in the MENA? Finally, we think you'd also be interested in our food focused panels. During ArabNet Beirut 2013, we featured 3 panels dedicated to online food delivery, online reservations,  and feed me content. All the information on the business models, scale vs margin, expansion strategies and challenges are wrap up in this one post.