Snappy Shopper is starting to build a presence beyond the convenience sector, as it looks to form a “digital high street” on the delivery app.
VP of groups and business development Greg Deacon told The Grocer convenience was still at the core of Snappy Shopper, but that it was looking for complementary businesses that would support retailers and “add more traffic to the app”.
“What you need is thriving high streets and thriving marketplaces,” said Deacon. “If you’re the only store on the high street, you probably won’t have much footfall. But if you get a number of different businesses on the high street, then everyone gets a shared benefit of that incremental footfall. And that’s the same for online.
”If more people go to Snappy for different shops than just convenience, it will accelerate growth for retailers because it is bringing more people to the app without creating conflict or adding competition to their business.”
The online delivery platform has already begun getting butchers – including Patricks of Camelon in Falkirk – and bakeries – including Cakes by Rebecca near Glasgow – on board.
It has signed up 10 bakeries so far, with help from a new partnership with wholesaler Bako, which supplies thousands of bakeries nationwide. It plans to have 100 bakeries on the platform within the next 12 months.
Bakers were already seeing higher basket spends on Snappy Shopper, it said. On average, a consumer is buying six items, meaning a typical basket on Snappy Shopper is £20, compared with £6 in store.
Snappy Shopper is also looking at building a presence in non-food areas, such as with pharmacies and florists. It is still in the process of finding these types of retailers to sign up, it said.
The move comes as Snappy Shopper’s owner Snappy Group – which also owns Hungrr (an online ordering platform for the hospitality channel) – has grown by 50% over the past year, fulfilling over 5.5 million orders from its network of over 1,800 merchants.
“We’re proud of how far we’ve come in a short space of time but as a management team, we believe this is just the start,” said founder and CEO Mike Callachan.
“Our ambition in the year ahead is to continue to set new records with a focus on growing UK coverage, expanding our digital high street marketplace beyond convenience, piloting a white label of our platform outside the UK and continuing to develop the rich suite of e-commerce and marketing enablement tools that comprise our core offering to local merchants.”
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