#OnShelf: On-demand delivery is the future of retail

by Louise Burgers. With lockdown and surges in this pandemic expected to be with us for months, possibly years; effective ecommerce platforms, especially apps; and on-demand delivery services for all South Africans, no matter where they live, is the future of grocery shopping for essentials – from the hypers to the spazas.

OneCart launches on-demand delivery with Makro

OneCart is the on-demand grocery delivery service to watch as it works hard to meet all customer omnichannel expectations. The fast-growing ecommerce delivery brand has now partnered with Makro for same-day delivery in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape. OneCart offers personalised shopping from multiple stores with two-hour delivery, one delivery fee and a single transaction. Besides helping customers from across South Africa easily shop for all their essentials and then some in one place, OneCart solves problems for retailers without competing with them, because OneCart shops from the shelves of brick-and-mortar stores. It provides an online shopping platform for retailers that don’t have their own and works alongside retailers that already have an e-commerce offering, complementing their omnichannel ecosystem.

OneCart partners with malls and retailers, big and small, for convenient and flexible same-day grocery deliveries. Its retailer partners include Woolworths, Pick n Pay and Pick n Pay Liquor, Food Lovers’ Market, Dis-Chem, Clicks, Jacksons, and now, Makro. “We are delighted to partner with leading retailer Makro and together bring more variety and value right to the doorsteps of OneCart users along with the ultimate convenience and flexibility of same-day delivery,” said OneCart CEO Lynton Peters. Co-founded in 2016 by Peters and COO Ariel Navarro, OneCart officially launched in early 2018, having secured seed capital of R16 million. The company has consistently proven its ability to scale, with 400% growth in its first year and 300% growth in 2019. It has seen a whopping 500% increase in orders since South Africa’s national COVID-19 lockdown came into effect on 26 March 2020. OneCart leveraged its partnerships to employ more than 450 new team members, expand its delivery service into new areas, including Pretoria North and Joburg South, and introduce 10 more collection points for improved service delivery.

Fair Cape Dairies feeds the hungry

The Fair Cape Cares Foundation has undertaken two large scale initiatives to assist with feeding Cape Town’s hungry over the extended lockdown. The foundation partnered with Cape Talk to help provide meals for communities left vulnerable by the COVID-19 lockdown. The foundation, a charitable trust underwritten by Fair Cape Dairies, committed to donating R400,000 worth of dairy products to feeding schemes in the Cape Town area over the next two months, in conjunction with Pippa Hudson’s show on Cape Talk. The Foundation also pledged 50c on all the proceeds from a special edition yoghurt pack sold to The Solidarity Fund for the next four months. The Solidarity Fund is leading the charge in feeding vulnerable communities and has delivered close to 280,000 food parcels to date. Joel Serman, trustee of the Fair Cape Cares Foundation, said that the lockdown brought into sharp focus just how insecure the food value chain in South Africa is. “One in four children in South Africa were malnourished, even before the crisis. An appalling statistic at the best of times, which COVID-19 only threatens to make even worse.”

An ill wind

The Cape of Storms lived up to its name this past week with gale force winds, flooding, snow for the mountains and freezing temperatures at peak Winter in SA. It’s become a sport in the Cape to film trucks being blown over in the wind and this past week didn’t disappoint, when a Simba truck was filmed being blown over watched by its shocked driver, who managed to escape before the full force of the wind tipped his truck. And of course, there was immediately a meme… Clearly lockdown has brought out the creative skills of many.

Louise Burgers (previously Marsland) is the Publisher and Editor and Co-Founder of RetailingAfrica.com. She has spent over 20 years writing about the FMCG retailing, marketing, media and advertising industry in South Africa and on the African continent. She has specialised in local and Africa consumer trends and is a passionate Afro-optimist who believes it is Africa’s time to rise again and that the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) will be a global gamechanger in the next decade.

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