How To Start An Online Grocery Business

It seems like everyone is talking about taking their business online. As such, considering an online grocery business is not surprising, albeit its impending surprises. One: while the COVID-19 pandemic did accelerate the demand for online businesses, it also has variants that continue to affect the economic market. Meaning, that in one way or another, any upcoming variants will affect your target market and sales bottom line. Two: being online means you must contend with the fast-paced nature of the digital era. That is, your business must be precise, efficient, agile, appealing, and visible. Three: Let’s not forget the growing rate of competition in the grocery industry
, making it much harder and more expensive to succeed. Still, starting an online grocery store is a risk worth taking if you focus on giving your customers value and an exceptional experience. Here is your ultimate hack to starting an online grocery business.


Define Your Basic Operational Strategy

Certain characteristics make a retail concept successful
:

But with a grocery store, there are additional things to consider. For instance, products sold in your grocery store aren’t standard. Some need multiple storage temperature regimens while others require very fast delivery because they have a short shelf life.

Therefore, what is the strategy that would best fit your online grocery business? Should you build the business from scratch, or should you use an already existing eCommerce grocery store
 platform? What revenue model should you use?

Should you consider specific features when creating your online business? And how do you factor in the vendor, consumer, and admin needs? Let’s explore these options further.


Starting From Scratch Vs Using A Ready-Made Solution

For any online business, the vendor presents their offerings that buyers can purchase and get delivered to their specified location. This can happen in different ways:

Through a website where the customer creates an account and provides important customer data, like their location. The customer can then use the website to purchase any products they select at any time, make payments, earn loyalty points, and wait as their purchase is delivered to their doorstep.

Here, you can choose to own, manage, and store goods in your business warehouse or simply pick orders from vendors and deliver them to the customer. The other website option is to become a middleman between different vendors and consumers.

In this case, highlight products sold by different vendors on your marketplace. Once customers choose and purchase a specific item from your website, the vendor receives a notification to deliver the goods to their location.

The advantage of building your website from scratch is that you get to control the entire design and development process. This means you create something that is unique and customized to your target market and preference. But this option costs more and takes more time.

The other method is using an already built platform where you can sell your products. With the ready-made option, all you must do is customize the themes, features, and applications to your liking, add your business name and logo, and you are good to go.

The ready-made option is cheaper and less time-consuming. It also offers you many features to choose from. On the flip side, you must pay a subscription fee for using the platform, meaning your bottom line is affected if you are on the platform and you lack control over the online platform.


Defining Your Revenue Model

Most online grocery businesses make money through commissions on delivery, transactions, or vendor subscription fees. But the revenue depends on the type of model you choose. For instance, if you are a middleman, then you can earn commissions from each transaction or from the vendor subscription fee.

But if you also oversee delivery when products are purchased from your online website, then you can earn commissions from delivery and transaction. On the other hand, the advantage of owning your warehouse and managing your entire online operations is that you earn every revenue from sales made online. But this model has added costs like warehouse management costs.


Thinking About Your Buyers, Vendors, And Admin

Transparency is key here as you will need to build trust throughout your supply chain. For example, list all your vendors so that your customers know where their products come from. If the admin is in charge of selecting the vendor that fulfils a customer order, ensure every visitor on your website is aware.

Mention any manufacturers of your fresh farm produce. The eco-friendlier your online grocery store
 is, the more demand you immerse. Therefore, ensure you share all your “green” brands and products. Also, you can consider specializing in selling certain products.

Niching will increase your brand awareness because you will be meeting the demands of a given target audience. As such, consider the people you are selling to more than the products you are selling when you decide to niche.

An excellent example is providing organic and natural goods. Personalize the shopping experience as well by using insights gathered from your collected retail customer data
. For instance, create a pop-up notification for add-on goods you know your customer might like based on items in their shopping list.


The Features You Need

You want an online platform that is intuitive and easy to use for everyone in your supply chain. Your features should also cater to the different needs of vendors, customers, and admin. Here’s how:

The buyer should have access to multicart, order substitution, single item cancellation, order return, click and collect, and cancellation request options. They should also have a delivery schedule and an order tracking feature. Include an auto-detect location feature for ease of use for repeat buyers.

The vendor should have a separate vendor dashboard, shop management, wallet management, delivery slots management, and an order cancellation or refund request management system. Include a sales report, imports and exports, and a pin on the map for the vendor.

Your delivery staff will also need profile management, accept and reject orders, delivery order management, push notifications, and defined delivery radius features. Add route navigation to buyer’s and seller’s location features, the convenience of operating options, and an order cancellation feature.

The admin should have different levels of administrative access, a product approval system, a subscription packages management system, and a delivery staff management system. Include a vendor approval and management feature, an advanced reports and statistics system, a progress Wen Apps features, and a tax and currency management feature.


Let Erply Help

The online grocery store market sales are projected to grow by $129.72 billion by 2023
. And with a POS system like Erply, you can create an online eCommerce grocery store that profits from this growth. Innately, Erply helps you organize your complex inventory, keep your best-selling items in stock, and optimize your supplier base. More than that, Erply can help you integrate with ready-made platforms that offer the best features for selling your grocery store products online and give you fast transaction options. Join Erply or try the 60-day free trial option
 for these benefits.