NEWS FEATURE
10 ASIAN TRADER 7 MARCH 2025
uick delivery is no longer a luxury or a
gimmick, it’s the clear roadmap to
profitability and a guaranteed route
to expansion for convenience stores aiming to
increase turnover, finds Asian Trader.
For decades, convenience stores have
thrived on their ability to provide instant
access to essentials. Propelled by Covid
lockdown and changes in habits, the consum-
ers’ definition of convenience now also
includes within-minutes delivery at home.
Currently, between physical and online
stores, the physical option remains the most
prominent, although with the increased
popularity of rapid grocery delivery services,
shoppers today are comfortably open to the
idea of buying groceries and food online to
save time and hassle.
In fact, the penetration of Brits shopping
online for food and other groceries has nearly
doubled since 2016. The UK grocery delivery
market is projected to skyrocket to £31.38
billion by 2025, a clear indicator of where
consumer preferences are weighted.
While 59 per cent of Brits prefer to buy
their groceries in-person at a traditional
storefront, the rest of the consumers are open
to shop either online or in-stores, shows
Statista’s recent data, signifying the huge pool
to tap into.
The last edition of Asian trader explored
how the convenience sector is seeing a dip
contrary to the overall grocery retail move-
ment. Among the many measures discussed
that can arrest this trend, delivery emerged as
one of the ways forward.
In fact, many retailers with a
keen focus on the delivery side
are reaping some great benefits.
Just like retailer Natalie
Lightfoot whose store Londis
Solo Convenience Store in
Glasgow has doubled sales since
launching a delivery service.
She now services about 85
delivery orders each day from
her 620-square-foot store.
“For me, since growth
couldn’t happen through
physical expansion, I decided to
just start bringing the store to
customers’ doorsteps.
Rapid delivery is opening new doors of
growth for convenience stores with a
promise of phenomenal success, finds
Pooja Shrivastava
promotions, tie-up with diferent brands and
suppliers helps us compete with the big boys,”
Patel told Asian Trader.
Budgens Berrymoor now has a dedicated
bespoke branded car for delivery with staf
doing the rounds from eight in the morning
until eight o’clock at night.
Sweet Success
Meanwhile in Glasgow, retailer Girish Jeeva is
taking his store’s delivery service to another
level altogether.
The owner of Girish’s Premier
Barmulloch, in collaboration with
Snappy Shopper, has recently
launched a 24-hour delivery
service, the first of its kind
in Scotland.
It has been just a month
since the launch, but the
response, he says, has been
“phenomenal.”
Jeeva shared with Asian
Trader, “We started the
delivery service about two years
ago since we saw a market for it. We
have been doing great since the start.”
Jeeva’s store’s growth was not accidental.
He has been strategic, investing in two
eye-catching, vibrant wrapped cars, which
turn vehicles into moving billboards, reaching
potential customers across a wide geographi-
cal range.
Zooming around the town or even in the
parking lots, such well-designed car wraps
work as a great marketing tool as they attract
attention while the eye-catching graphics
increase brand recognition and recall.
He also employs 10 drivers throughout the
week, with five on standby, ensuring that the
service remains smooth without afecting
in-store operations.
Elevating the delivery service to 24-hour
service came to Jeeva as an epiphany.
“I was thinking what new I should do in
A sure-shot way forward
“The customer on the end of
the order line doesn’t care what
the size of the store is, as long as
he is getting what he ordered well
in time,” Lightfoot told Asian
Trader.
With delivery accounting for
30 per cent of her sales, Lightfoot
is confident that rapid delivery is the way
forward.
In Middlesex, Londis retailer Atul Sodha
shares similar sentiments. As shared previ-
ously with Asian Trader, he feels that online
quick delivery expanded his store’s reach to
people who wouldn’t normally visit it.
Clearly, rapid delivery can elevate c-stores
expand beyond physical limitations thus
increasing sales and turnover.
By placing indie stores on the digital map,
the platforms like Snappy Shopper,
Deliveroo, and Just Eat are now
leveling the playing field.
These platforms help
convenience stores bridge
the gap between local
service and professional-
level logistics, fielding
them on the same playing
field as major grocery
delivery players such as
Sainsbury’s Chop Chop, Asda
Express Delivery, Tesco Whoosh,
and Ocado Zoom.
In Wellingborough, when retailer Biren
Patel thought to start a delivery service during
Covid at his Budgens Berrymoor store, he
wanted to do it in a “profes-
sional way”. After a quick
consideration of all the
platforms, he decided to join
Snappy Shopper.
Results started clocking up
immediately.
“Deliveries added another
chapter in my store’s turnover.
Snappy Shopper helped me to
sell not just locally, but about
five miles down the road; I
otherwise would never have
got those customers.
“Snappy Shopper has been
very supportive. Their
Natalie Lightfoot
Girish Jeeva