It is almost 6 p.m .: as curfew approaches, several delivery people carrying a bag stamped Deliveroo line up at the entrance of the store.
A member of the establishment's staff takes care of them: the delivery man shows the order number on his phone and the employee gives him the corresponding bag.
Thank you, goodbye, see you next.
A well-established organization, which the French restaurateurs have known very well since the arrival of the giants of home meal delivery in France, a few years ago.
Except that this scene does not take place in a restaurant, but in a small Carrefour City store, in the 18th arrondissement of Paris.
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Since the first lockdown, users of the Deliveroo and Uber Eats connecting platforms can order products from retail giants, such as Carrefour, Monoprix and Franprix.
The promise is tempting: delivery is done quickly, even within half an hour, and allows everyone to do their shopping without leaving home.
A faster formula than a traditional delivery, and particularly suitable for small last-minute extra purchases.
These initiatives were not born out of confinement, as one might have thought.
Uber Eats exchanged "
for several months
" with Carrefour: the events of March have only accelerated these discussions, says the distributor.
Likewise, Deliveroo had already entered into a partnership with Franprix in the past.
But the confinement has given a boost to these practices, travel restrictions oblige.
Satisfied, Carrefour signed an exclusive agreement with Eats for deliveries to the provinces, last July.
Deliveroo's partnership with Monoprix had been thought out upstream, but it was "
set up and activated in-store in less than a month,
" notes the distributor.
On the Uber Eats side, tests had been carried out upstream in other regions of the world, including an “
association with Cornershop
”, a Chilean start-up in the delivery of groceries popular in Latin America, in October 2019. Deliveroo has also already deployed a similar device abroad, including in the United Kingdom, its historical market.
The basis was therefore solid.
A service that complements conventional deliveries
In fact, all you have to do is connect to the platforms to see the stores offering delivery near you.
The platforms each have their preferred hunting ground: Carrefour for Uber Eats, and the Casino group for the British company Deliveroo.
Other smaller distributors, food shops and grocery stores, also rushed there, attracted by the prospect of reaching new consumers.
The prices offered are generally a few cents more expensive compared to the prices recorded in the store, in order to integrate the additional service and the platform compensation.
They are directly set by grocery stores, supermarkets and convenience stores referenced on the applications, explains Eats and Deliveroo.
Carrefour has negotiated, on a national scale, the margin for Uber Eats, specifies the tricolor sign.
Uber provides retailers with "
the list of items that can be referenced on the app,
" and stores can then change the items offered as long as they fit into that general list.
Same thing with its competitor, which defines with the businesses the list of products offered.
Delivery people are paid in the same way as for an order at a restaurant.
For the platforms, the challenge is twofold: to extend their offer, on the one hand, across the entire food spectrum, and to attract new customers, on the other hand, young, urban and connected.
In addition, these partnerships do not cannibalize the delivery service offered by distributors, we assure you at Carrefour: most orders relate to extra shopping, in addition, therefore, to larger purchases, which will rather require the delivery service of distributors.
“
Our customers appreciate the complementarity of our delivery solutions
,” confirms Monoprix.
A model that explodes
And it works: in France, success is clearly there.
Starting from a few Parisian stores in April, the partnership between Carrefour and Eats now covers more than 550 stores offering 3,000 items in more than 100 urban areas.
"
We are very happy with these first months of collaboration with Carrefour
", we are pleased with the side of States.
Between March and October, the "
part dedicated to everyday products
" of the application jumped 400%, notes the company.
So much so that the two players want to continue their momentum "
in areas where the two companies are present and where the partnership makes sense
", such as Italy, Poland or Spain.
Carrefour is also pleased with a merger that "
works well
", allows it to make its network of stores known to new customers and is proving financially interesting.
Deliveroo, meanwhile, has joined forces with the Casino group.
The partnership "
is very positive and is experiencing good performance
", notes the latter, without citing a figure.
In addition, it “
also enables it to recruit a new loyal clientele, rather 'Foodtech', and already customers of Deliveroo
”.
For the British platform, the French market is promising: it now includes more than a thousand points of sale falling into the grocery category, in the broad sense, such as supermarkets, wine merchants or bakers, and wants to continue to grow. in this domain.
An experiment has also just been launched with the king of frozen Picard, in Île-de-France.
Eats, for its part, counts “
more than 1,300
” points of sale falling into this category and intends to “
continue to strengthen the selection offered, whether with major players such as Carrefour or even food stores
”.