Restaurant Delivery Giant Deliveroo Has Opened a Real-Life Grocery Store

Deliveroo is chewing up all of the data. The London-born, one-time restaurant delivery giant — now omnipresent goods-provider — has used a set of findings on shopping and meal-planning habits to follow Amazon from the digital ether into the world of real-life grocery stores. Deliveroo Hop, a “bricks-and-mortar” grocery store in partnership with the supermarket Morrisons, opens on New Oxford Street in central London today, 3 October.

“It comes as new research from Deliveroo reveals the need for convenience and availability, with around one in three (35 percent) dinner plans decided on the day and ingredients bought on the way home,” press materials released by Deliveroo said.

Customers will be able to shop three ways: in-store; through digital kiosks, via the Deliveroo app for collection at the store; and for local delivery via the brand’s network of riders. Open from 8 a.m. until 11 p.m. and offering “over 1,750 grocery items, from Morrisons ‘Ready to Eat’ and ‘The Best’ ranges to store cupboard staples, snacks and dinner ingredients.”

“We’re opening our doors and welcoming commuters, local residents, visitors and day-trippers into our first Deliveroo high-street grocery store in the U.K.,” chief operating officer at Deliveroo, Eric French, said. “Our New Oxford Street store promises a new way to shop for Deliveroo customers, giving them even greater flexibility and choice and should help boost the local area with nearly two thirds of shoppers saying they will visit other nearby shops as they come to shop with Deliveroo.”

The data miners at the delivery giant have established that on average, 40 percent of shoppers “reported buying groceries once every two to three days,” consigning the “weekly shop to history.” Elsewhere, that younger people “champion convenience, with almost half (42 percent) of 18-34 year olds ranking it as the number one determining factor when purchasing groceries, while 38 percent of those surveyed ranked price as most important.”

And, in London, a quarter (24 percent) of Londoners now use rapid grocery services once a week to get their groceries.

Just as Deliveroo inserted itself into the restaurant industry in under the guise of providing a new route to market and increased sales, aided by the pandemic when the grocery world was turned on its head, it is now meddling in the (more reliable and more profitable) land of groceries.