UK | Co-op, the UK’s convenience retail and quick commerce leader, has launched a new million-pound rapid delivery grocery app, ‘Peckish’.
In a grocery retailer first, Peckish will offer a technologically advanced service to thousands of independent retailers looking to serve their customers and communities online.
The app will enable small, often family-owned, independent grocery businesses, shops, and other co-operative retail societies to offer their local customers an online grocery shopping and delivery service.
The Peckish app has overcome barriers that independent retailers face when moving to sell online, including cost, scale and resources, allowing smaller-scale brick-and-mortar retailers to have a presence online and enabling more consumers to quickly and conveniently shop local and support their high street stores.
The Co-op has made an initial GBP 1 million investment for year one on Peckish, following a successful 30-store trial last year. It has targeted an ambitious first-year sign-up of over 1,000 stores, with the potential to triple that by year three.
The convenience retailer is no stranger to the importance of supporting local community shopping. They have a store in every postal code area of the UK and are clear in their commitment to investing in these communities. This has helped the areas thrive and prosper both commercially and socially, leading to resilient and durable communities for local people.
Co-op is the leading quick-commerce supermarket across all the major platforms, with more than 86 percent of the UK population having access to Co-op groceries online via its own online shop and its strategic partners.
Leveraging this expertise and the scope of Co-op scale and technology means the convenience retailer can pass this economy of scale to thousands of independent retailers to help more of them to thrive online.
Shoppers can use Peckish to choose their shop from the range of products the individual retailer has selected to put online. Retailers select the price, enabling them to match in-store prices.
They can choose whether to deliver the online orders themselves or for them to be managed through Co-op’s order management system and delivered quickly and conveniently locally through Co-op’s delivery partners, including Just Eat and Uber Direct, in as little as under 30 minutes.
“The growth and popularity of quick commerce in the UK is exceptional, as consumers appetite for a convenient grocery delivery service in as little as 30 minutes from ordering, increases almost weekly. We are experts in running small, local convenience shops and the leading quick comm operator, and I’m excited about being able to share this expertise with all our neighbouring independent retailers, to help them extend their customer reach and services online, which in turn, can help transform their businesses,” said Matt Hood, Co-op Food Managing Director.
“We know that smaller local shops, like our own, operate at the heart of the local community life. More than a shop, they are a community hub, creating value locally through job creation, community participation and their support of local suppliers. The ‘shop local’ sentiment is strong amongst consumers, and Peckish can help more retailers connect quickly online with their customers, providing greater consumer choice locally, and promoting healthier and more viable high streets and communities.”
Peckish will link with a retailer’s EPOS system, saving manual tasks such as pricing, stock control, and management.
Retailers who sign up will receive support, including data, trends and insight from Co-op’s leading quick commerce team, point of sale material, window stickers, leaflets, shelf talkers, digital and social media assets, posters and banners.
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