How to open an online grocery store? We managed to do it!

How to open an online grocery store? Is it worth it and what does the start look like? If you are thinking about it, there is probably no better time than now. How to open an online grocery store? Is it worth it and what does the start look like? If you are thinking about opening an online grocery store, there is probably no better time than now. Unfortunately, because of the epidemic in Poland, many people are currently looking for groceries on the internet with home delivery. Out of curiosity, I will mention that the biggest supermarkets have delivery waiting times of 2-3 weeks. Unfortunately, this business has its limitations, which we list below.

What is best to sell in an online grocery store?

Preferably all the basic necessities that we find in every brick-and-mortar supermarket. A grocery store on the internet, like a physical one, should contain all the most needed products. Among others:

• Fresh fruit and vegetables
• Bread. If we sell and deliver only in our own city, we can offer any kind of bread. If you want to sell products across the whole of Poland, look into spelt breads, which keep their natural freshness for a long time.
• Cold cuts and meats
• Fish
• Grocery products
• Household chemicals
• Products for children

The warehouse and the grocery store

If we have a warehouse filled with goods from our ordinary supermarket, great! And if not, we have to start differently. In your city or the surrounding towns there are surely food wholesalers, and that is where we must go first, to get to know the assortment and what can be listed in the store without worrying about stock shortages. Once we know the goods, we can move on and fill our online store with products. You do not have to drive to the wholesaler every day for goods. Set up order collection in your store and deliveries every second day.

Shipping the goods

It is best to handle shipping yourself (if we sell only to a given city, e.g. Warsaw). With courier companies the parcel would have to go through a sorting center and a courier. Shipping time would be about 3 days. Of course, we can add such a shipping option in the store so that customers know the waiting time may be several days. Remember, to make shipping worthwhile, allow orders only from a minimum amount, e.g. €34 gross.

Which platform to choose for building a grocery store?

You can choose any, but remember... If you choose SaaS, you will pay a lot for store modifications. I would recommend PrestaShop. It is free software that you can download from this page. Not every platform has a dedicated system or cheap add-ons to adapt a standard online store to a grocery store selling goods over the internet. It is mainly about products of variable weight that do not have a single weight, e.g. packaged meat. The price may be per kilogram, but you will never meet this product at a perfect weight of 1 kg.

In practice

We launched such an online store with delivery in a larger city. Curious what it looks like? A campaign budget of €34 brought 39 orders for a total of over €4,120 in a single day! It is not that simple either, because the store has its "problems" that have to be solved, like the different weights of packaged products. The online store must be adapted and set up for this kind of business. This is exactly the kind of store we can create, and we would like to share it with our clients. If you are interested in opening an online grocery store like, for example, Frisco, write to us or call. Contact information can be found in the page footer.