While the coronavirus pandemic adversely impacted several sectors – particularly travel, tourism, hospitality and brick-and-mortar retail – it was undoubtedly a boon for some others. E-commerce, and especially e-grocery, was one of them thanks in part to lockdown and consumers avoiding crowded hypermarkets during the pandemic.
According to market experts, the e-grocery sector’s gross merchandising value grew from $478 million in the first quarter of 2020 to $1.12 billion in the third.
It’s a trend that seems to have continued unabated into 2021.
“Over the course of the previous year and in the first quarter of this year, the activities around the e-grocery segment have intensified,” said Gaurav Bansal, CEO of Swan. “More offers, more players, different operating models and greater diversification in the assortment sold online signifies that the users are becoming more used to online grocery shopping.”
The numbers
Bansal has plenty of figures from his online grocery delivery platform to back this up – Swan now has more than 300 retail partners, saw growth of 25 percent over Q1 (in an e-grocery market Bansal says is projected to grow 15 percent year-on-year) and an in-house delivery fleet of more than 100 cars and bikes.
Swan’s growth has seen the platform hiring employees in the growth, business development, customer service, operations and strategy functions in a year that the CEO previously told Arabian Business would be focused on user centricity.
New growth areas
So, how are UAE consumers’ preferences evolving, and what is Swan doing to cater to these new tastes? “Based on consumer demand, Swan launched the beauty and wellness category where users can explore salons and spas in their area and book beauty appointments within a few clicks.”
“Moreover, we recently added at-home beauty services as well, giving our users an option to avail beauty services from the comfort of their homes.”
‘User centricity’
Bansal adds that Swan is developing a “synergistic utility” for its users, details of which will be shared in the future.
The platform’s diversification out of a pure grocery focus is in keeping with the regional trend of super apps, which, as Swan’s stated mission goes, places user centricity at their centre.
Bansal previously told Arabian Business that the Swan app’s basic wireframes were designed to allow easy diversification from the outset.
“The whole e-grocery industry is based on offering convenience to the user and this is being taken to new levels,” he said, adding that users want more than just an intuitive app flow and seamless ordering experiences.
“They want cross-store search, in-app substitution for out-of-stock items, and one-click re-ordering of essentials. Swan is notching it up even further by allowing users to build multiple parallel baskets across stores, schedule deliveries even a week in advance, and also recommending products based on their past purchasing behavior, thereby decreasing the screen time for its users.”
Besides the addition of at-home beauty services, Swan has also launched free delivery for groceries – other platforms tend to charge an additional Dh5 to Dh10 for this – while also improving delivery profile for its users. This means a greater selection of available time slots as well as smaller minimum order sizes than before for most of the retail stores Swan has partnered with.
A greater focus on – and investment in – analytics and business intelligence technologies has helped the platform improve its offerings this way. “We’re focusing more on data-driven decision-making, so these tools continue to remain as our focus areas.” explained Bansal.
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