The Netherlands has gained a flash delivery service.Getir promises to deliver groceries in Amsterdam within minutes.In and around the centre of the capital, the company from Turkey has opened several small distribution centres. Similar players are expected to enter the Dutch market soon.
Getir stocks a thousand common supermarket products, delivering day and night within minutes. Based on the search and order amount of Dutch customers, this range will be expanded in the coming weeks.
Competition
In the Netherlands, consumers can now choose from three similar grocery delivery services: Gorillas (operating in Amsterdam), Flink (operating in Utrecht, Delft and Tilburg and The Hague) and now Getir. Competition for those three companies is likely to increase soon: France's Cajou and Britain's Dija, Weezy and Zapp also have their eye on the Dutch market, according to a roundup by the FD.
Profit becomes a challenge
Investors do see bread in these grocery apps. Girollas raised an investment of 244 million euros at the end of March. Getir managed to raise $300 million the same month. Still, critics question the revenue model of these services. Products are as expensive as in the supermarket, the order amount is usually low and delivery costs are often no more than 2 euros either. The hyperlocal warehouses are often located in A-locations, requiring high rents for a relatively small delivery area. Emerging competition puts further pressure on margins. Meal delivery companies like Deliveroo, UberEats and Just Eat Takeaway (Thuisbezorgd), the forerunners of these flash delivery services, are still not making a profit.
"The amounts being raised now show that these are very capital-intensive companies," investor Pieter Welten (Prime Ventures) told MT/Sprout about this earlier. The startups spend a lot of money not only on operations (delivery and real estate), but also on winning the customer, the so-called customer acquisition costs. "In London, you already have five similar providers," he says. And then there are the established names, such as Deliveroo and Thuisbezorgd.nl, which can easily make the switch to groceries. "It is much easier toupsell current customers than to tap into new ones. Those big players already have the knowledge, scale and customers."
