Mick Haupt / Unsplash
The idea of being able to pay someone else to pick up your grocery items, and eliminating the risk of going to a store during the pandemic has become very popular this year. No lineups or masks for long periods of time, what could get better?
According to Ben Fraraccio – the owner of the grocery delivery service Grocery Guy, we can expect the act of ordering groceries to remain popular even after the pandemic.
“A lot of people have been forced to have someone else do their groceries. And so that trust barrier had to be lowered out of need,” Fraraccio says. “I think that a comfort level has been attained during this pandemic, that will follow through after it.”
Fraraccio started his service in 2011 to primarily cater to seniors and those with mobility issues, and their audience quickly grew to a larger audience of busy families, students, and those who just don’t want to grocery shop.
“In 2011, I was working as an alcohol delivery person. And I had the idea [that] if we could be delivering alcohol, why could we not be delivering groceries,” he said. “While I was sitting in Cherryhill Mall, I heard some ladies at the next table talking about how difficult it was getting grocery shopping done. And how expensive the store that was local to them was versus stores that were a little further away. So I went home and started working on that idea.”
Fraraccio says business was already growing before the pandemic and then saw a large spike in March which caused his team to adapt quickly. The Grocery Guy company quickly got used to doing contact-free delivery, taking payments via E-Transfer or Paypal, and made general changes to the way they shopped.
“In order to fit as many people into the day as we possibly could, we had a few store managers that were allowing us to come in really in the morning and do some of the shopping.”
Only time will tell what the future looks like for grocery stores, but pickup and delivery services could remain successful now that ordering has become so accessible and popular.
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