HappyFresh's Aspiration to Be a One-stop Marketplace for Grocery, Focus on Partnerships and User Experience

The pandemic has led to an unprecedented increase in several online services, including e-grocery, driven by mobility restrictions and offline shopping security concerns. Filippo Candrini, Managing Director of HappyFresh Indonesia, Indonesia's leading marketplace for groceries, confirms this statement and outlines several mechanisms to react to this transition.

“This pandemic has changed the way many businesses operate. HappyFresh as one of the first digital companies operating in Indonesia's online wholesale industry experienced a surge in service usage. This is clearly a growing trend since the pandemic began," he said.

After a year of pandemic, HappyFresh managed to operate better. In a very short time, the company has doubled its fleet size, acquired new customers, and increased service productivity. However, it is important to highlight the fact that the pandemic does not appear to be abating yet.

“What we have done, last year we improved backend and front-facing within the platform to help better accommodate, adding features that limit certain products in bulk to avoid rhetorical purchases, contactless delivery, providing more payment methods, testing our fleet, all the things we have done and continue to do on "It's basically on our list of plans," added Candrini.

One-stop marketplace for Grocery

HappyFresh positions its platform as a weekly or monthly grocery. The company claims to focus on Grocery and does not encroach on other verticals. This platform focuses on providing the largest supermarket portfolio in Indonesia with a selection of specialty stores as well as various complementary foodstuffs.

“We don't intend to be great app, but we want to be a super deep app Grocery for our customers and partners," added Candrini.

In terms of target market, the platform intends to be a service that can serve every customer. Not only for the upper middle segment, but also mass market. The company's demographics also show that around 80% of its consumers are women aged 25-40 years. Working parents and single professionals also represent a large group of its customers.

"Many of our customers shopped online in 2020 for the first time, and they continue to do weekly or monthly shopping because it's convenient: Our trained Personal Shopper and Rider Partners will select and deliver groceries to their door while they can dedicate time to what they care about." "Most importantly, forget for a moment about traffic jams, queuing or carrying heavy bags, and enjoy unique online promotions," Candrini told DailySocial in a separate interview.

Convenience comes in different forms for each individual, it can be delivery speed, price, or detailed information. However, during a pandemic, it also means safety in terms of health. Across this spectrum, HappyFresh focuses on delivering high-quality products and a better consumer experience. Including providing personal shopper and special packaging to ensure product freshness.

HappyFresh is very strict about ensuring the quality of the products they deliver. Therefore, most deliveries are carried out by the fleet itself. They only forward eligible orders to third parties and their share is only around 5% of the total volume. In terms of product delivery, they are currently partnered with Grab and lalamove.

"We try to be very personal with our products, therefore it is important to create a flow that is very suitable and personalized for each user," said Candrini.

There are two main sources of monetization in this platform, service fees from partners and delivery fees from consumers. In this case, the company tries to produce an equal value proposition for partners and consumers.

At the beginning of this year, HappyFresh also launched a program reward new. The system is quite simple: earn points for each order shipped and exchange them for discounts on your next purchase. Each order will move users closer to becoming a Gold member to gain more exclusive benefits. Last April, the platform also included OVO as a new payment method.

Apart from HappyFresh, there are also several platforms that provide online grocery services with different value propositions, including SayurBox and TaniHub.

Expansion Strategy

Apart from Indonesia, HappyFresh is also available in Malaysia and Thailand. With a mission to provide online delivery services for household needs for all families in Southeast Asia, as well as making life easier for many people, this platform is trying to reach a wider market by accelerating local expansion.

The latest study from Alpha JWC Ventures and Kearney predicts that second and third tier cities will account for 48 percent of e-commerce activity in Indonesia in 2025, up from 30 percent in 2020. Candrini said this is in line with HappyFresh's commitment to continue improving services available to all Indonesian households.

“Each city and service area requires a specific approach. "We have established partnerships with local supermarkets and national retail companies, as well as holding programs to increase awareness of the benefits and convenience of online shopping for household needs (to the public and new users)," he added.

In Makassar, HappyFresh has collaborated with several supermarkets, such as Lotte Mart, Hero and Giant. While in Bogor, HappyFresh has partnered with Giant and Tip Top. In total, this platform has partnered with 400+ supermarkets and is available in 11 cities throughout Indonesia, including Jabodetabek, Bandung, Surabaya, Malang, Semarang, Makassar and Bali.

-Original article in English, translated by Kristin Siagian