PedidosYa and Rappi deepen their foray into the mass consumption business and redouble their bet against supermarkets.
The two delivery platforms are expanding their dark store chains, or "invisible stores"
, designed to exclusively serve online orders through their armies of delivery men.
The business is known as
Quick Commerce
, it is
a variant of the more traditional electronic commerce
.
This modality, which is fashionable in the most developed markets,
aims at small purchases and home delivery in the shortest possible time
.
It is based on low-cost stores and structured like a supermarket or self-service, but without customer service.
PedidosYa opened its first dark store exactly 3 years ago (this week they are celebrating) under the
PedidosYa Markets
banner
.
The startup born in Uruguay and which today belongs to the German giant Delivery Hero, added 11 stores last year and
plans to open another 9 throughout 2023
, all in the GBA.
"In the suburbs they operate very well and
we have even greater penetration than in the Capital
," argues Juan Aranguren, the executive in charge of that business unit.
Dark stores offer a limited universe of food, drinks, toiletries and cleaning items (between 1,000 and 3,000), which
are selected based on demand
.
They are premises between 200 and 400 square meters, with cash registers, gondolas and refrigerators.
Only the order makers work there, who prepare the packages with the help of the application.
PedidosYa today has a total of 70 and is
"the online supermarket that sells the most
," the company boasts.
For its part, in August 2021 Rappi launched its first
"Turbo"
for ultra-fast deliveries ("in less than 10 minutes", according to the advertising slogan) and today it counts 20. The last opening was in the center of Mar del Plata.
Company sources explained that they plan
to resume the expansion plan from the second half of 2023
, also with a focus on the GBA.
This unicorn born in Colombia -a technological icon of that country- has a presence in 9 markets in the region, in which it also supplements its income with its relatively new "Turbo".
Traditional chains reacted to this, with different results.
Carrefour and Changomás
launched their pilot tests with the Bringo and 321+ brands
, respectively.
But both were discontinued "because they did not give the expected results," business sources agree.
The only one that prospers with this scheme is Spid, the dark store model of the Chilean group Cencosud (Jumbo, Disco and Vea).
The company has already opened 34 "invisible stores"
in some of its hypermarkets, and another 3 physical stores, which operate independently, to meet a specific online demand.
Cencosud boosted the scheme with the launch of an application so that customers can make quick purchases.
"Basically today Spid is focused on Capital and GBA for now, but
the idea is to get to 60 locations this year
," a company source said.
The main challenge, they acknowledge, is the logistics infrastructure, an advantage that the two delivery platforms have.
"It is essential to resolve the issue.
It is not the same to make a delivery in the center of CABA, than in a town in the interior
, "they added.
The value of dark stores -and their development- lies in their low operating costs compared to a traditional branch.
In mass consumption, they aim to solve urgent purchases, for which the average package oscillates between 4 and 5 units.
In the market they explain that the format was all the rage during the pandemic but lost momentum with the reopening of activities.
Hence, PedidosYa and Rappi were forced to rethink their expansion strategies to compete with the supermarkets.
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