Last Updated: 2nd May, 2024
The digital revolution has significantly changed the trajectory of the online grocery delivery industry. As per the reports, the online grocery industry market size is expected to reach USD 2158.53 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 25.3% from 2022 to 2030. Driven by a surge in the number of consumers preferring online grocery shopping and the convenience and flexibility offered by online grocery delivery platforms, the market is expected to experience significant growth in the coming years.
This is a powerful indicator of the potential of this online grocery delivery market, making it an attractive option for enterprenuers looking to invest in this sector by launching their online grocery website. However, creating your online grocery website like Instacart, Peapod, FreshDirect, Shipt, and more would require careful planning and research. Therefore, to help you out, in this blog, we outline the steps to create an online grocery website and provide insights about the business model and necessary features.
An online grocery website facilitates the process of buying fresh groceries and making deliveries within a couple of hours. But, creating a grocery delivery website and making profits demands extraordinary levels of efficiency that are powered by the application of technology and automation. It can be daunting for traditional grocers to build an online grocery website on their own. This is why we have streamlined the steps needed to create an online grocery website. These are listed below:
There are several business models prevalent in the industry to start your grocery delivery website. Some of them include:
Let’s gain insights into these business models in detail.
In this business model, the business owner is responsible for inventory management. The platform owner purchases the stock from different suppliers, wholesalers, and manufacturers, and stores it in warehouses or large storage spaces. When customers place orders, items are picked from inventory and sent for delivery. A robust inventory management system is crucial for successfully implementing this business model.
A hyperlocal business model caters to the needs of grocery buyers within a specific geographical area. The entrepreneur collaborates with local suppliers for inventory availability. The primary characteristic of this business model is its ability to get groceries delivered to customers’ doorstep promptly.
In this business model, the business owner opens up a supermarket-like online grocery platform. It enables customers to do online grocery shopping for a diverse range of products from different brands on a single platform. The prices of the products are kept competitive to attract customers and rely on high sales volumes to generate revenue. In this business model, a chain of multiple stores serves different locations.
This business model brings together the strengths of online and offline shopping to provide more choice and flexibility to customers and gives brick-and-mortar stores a much stronger value proposition. The buyers purchase groceries online and pick up the purchased goods from the store as per their availability.
The instant delivery business model focuses on grocery delivery fulfillment as soon as possible after the order is placed successfully. The order deliveries are completed within the quickest possible time.
This business model includes customers setting a date and time for grocery delivery. It provides flexibility to customers to choose the time of delivery as per their convenience and availability. It is important to ensure the orders are delivered within the promised time frame, enhancing your platform’s reputation.
You can implement the following revenue channels to make your grocery delivery business profitable. Let’s know about them in detail below.
Features play a crucial role in the success of any online grocery website. Therefore, implementing advanced features is non-negotiable. Following are the important features you should consider while creating your online grocery website:
An intuitive and user-friendly buyer panel can help provide customers with a smooth user experience. Buyers can easily access information relating to orders, their profile, order cancellation requests, rewards, offers, credits, and more.
This is an important feature for admin as it facilitates easy management of deliveries. Admin can handle deliveries either manually or by assigning or broadcasting them to the delivery staff. The admin can also enable access to sellers to manage the order deliveries.
Moreover, delivery apps allow drivers to have access to multiple orders, helping in route planning, saving time, and increasing their efficiency. They can get instant notifications for the deliveries and can manage their earnings seamlessly.
Order management is another important feature in a grocery delivery website. Robust order management feature enables easy management of order status, invoices of the orders, and details of the orders to be delivered. Moreover, this streamlines the process of managing orders, eventually ensuring timely deliveries.
This is an essential feature for the smooth functioning of any online grocery business. With effective product management features it becomes easy for admin to create, import, export, and manage the list of products, categories, seller inventories, brand, product tags, and more.
One of the popular causes of cart abandonment is the inconvenience caused at the checkout or due to complicated payment methods. Your grocery website can reduce these problems by streamlining the payment and checkout process. Additionally, by incorporating multiple payment options such as debit/credit cards, e-wallets, mobile banking, and more you can offer maximum convenience to users enhancing their grocery shopping experience.
With an efficient content management system you can easily update/edit/add the content on the website. With user-friendly interfaces and robust functionalities, you can curate compelling content for your platform and effectively market your grocery website. This will ultimately drive more sales and enhance user engagement.
User-friendly and intuitive mobile apps will provide ease of use to your customer base. The buyer’s app enable the customers to purchase anything, anytime accessing your grocery website just out of pocket. The mobile apps also streamline the buying and checkout process while enhancing user satisfaction. Moreover, mobile app for drivers streamlines the delivery process for delivery personnel offering effective management of the deliveries.
Crafting a well-defined marketing strategy is crucial for a successful business. While executing the perfect marketing strategy can be challenging, leveraging robust marketing features can streamline the process. Here are some marketing activities you can consider implementing for your business.
After gaining knowledge about the features of online grocery store websites, the next important step is to understand how to build a successful website. In the next section, let’s discuss different development approaches to build and launch your online grocery website.
Majorly there are two development approaches to build and launch your online grocery website–
Custom Development: In custom development, you have to hire a team of developers and designers or outsource a team to build your website from scratch. This development approach requires more effort, investment, and time to build and launch your online grocery website.
Ready Made Software: Ready-made software is an off-the-shelf solution to quickly launch your website in the market. This software comes pre-integrated with all essential features and functionalities to successfully launch and run your online grocery delivery website. These software solutions are already used by multiple clients and are well-tested and reliable. One such popular ready-made grocery delivery software is Growcer. Let’s know more about it in the next section.
Growcer is a feature-rich online grocery delivery software. This software is designed to streamline all the operations involved in successfully running a grocery delivery business. Growcer comes pre-equipped with all essential industry-specific features and has served global clientele across the globe. Moreover, it is highly customizable software and can be customized according to your business requirements and goals.
Following are the features offered by Growcer:
View complete feature list of Growcer
Other specifications of Growcer:
Current market figures state that online grocery delivery marketplaces are growing at a lightning pace. While their reach is certainly touching new markets with every passing day, lots of potential investors are also showing their keen interest in them.
So, it won’t be wrong to say that this is a good time to create an online grocery website for your own area. By following all the steps mentioned in this blog you can easily kick start your online grocery business. But if you still need more assistance, you can contact our experts.
Q1. Is the online grocery business profitable?
Ans. Yes, the online grocery business is one of the most rapidly growing. As per a market report, grocery eCommerce sales are forecast to account for 9.5% of the total US grocery sales of $1.097 trillion. From here, the online share is projected to expand to 20.5% of $1.285 trillion in 2026. This is because customers have developed the habit of shopping for everything online.
Q2. Are Mobile apps necessary for an online grocery store?
Ans. In the current age of digitalization, Grocery delivery apps are important. Everyone uses a mobile phone as a gadget for receiving calls. Additionally, it is used for eCommerce too. So, using a mobile with grocery delivery apps brings convenience, as buyers can shop 24×7 from any place and get the order delivered to their doorstep.
Q3. Legally what should an online grocery store abide by? (please note: Legal formalities can be summarized here)
Ans. Retailers and business owners should stay compliant with online business laws and regulations to future proof their online grocery business against legal calamities and expensive operational mishaps. Further, to stay safe, it is better to be aware of rights and wrongs when it comes to taxes, payment gateways, shipping restrictions, trademarks patents and copyrights, licenses and permits, PCI compliance, customer privacy, and business insurance.
Q4. How do I start an online grocery store like “Instacart?”
Ans. If you are an entrepreneur who is looking to start an online grocery store like “Instacart,” then you should understand the pain points of customers and offer better services through distinct features. To draw a better understanding, you can read https://www.fatbit.com/fab/build-grocery-delivery-app-like-instacart/
Q5. How much does it cost to develop an online grocery store website and app?
Ans. There are two options – either to build a website/app from scratch or to use a readymade solution that saves time, effort, and money. However, if you are looking to build a website or an application from scratch then factors like complexity of features, design, location of developers, and other requirements will greatly affect the cost. On average, grocery app development (alone) can cost you between $3000 to $14000.
Here, we would like to apprise you about Growcer, a cost-effective readymade grocery eCommerce solution for multivendor and single vendor grocery stores. Developed by FATbit Technologies, Growcer comprises all high-end features, offers 1 year-free technical support, is fully customizable and its pricing starts at $2499.00 per user, as a one-time payment.
Q6. How is growcer different from Shopify to build an online grocery store?
Ans. Growcer is a readymade grocery eCommerce store that is fully customizable, is equipped with a plethora of features, offers payment integration, accepts one-time payment, and apart from several other benefits offers 1 year of free technical support along with the source code. It also comes equipped with mobile apps for buyers and delivery staff (iOS and Android both).
Shopify is an eCommerce store that is not niche-specific but can cater to the grocery industry. Its pricing is on a monthly basis and delivery apps will be at an extra cost.
Q7. How do I create an online grocery website – both multivendor or single vendor?
Ans. You can choose Growcer as a readymade solution for multivendor stores and single vendor.
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Comments (2)
ashita maheshwari
FATbit Chef Post author
too good
and also helpful
Thanks Ashita
Glad you liked it.
Cheers