HappyFresh Presents Product Innovation; Respond to Quick Commerce Trends

Online grocery services seem to be gaining wider acceptance among users. This is well captured by HappyFresh as one of the platforms that provide related services.

Recently, they inaugurated a new innovation called “HappyFresh Supermarket”, to expand access to daily necessities products by increasing virtual store presence.

This step is also used as one of HappyFresh’s strategies to strengthen collaboration with national and regional supermarket chains which have so far helped provide a variety of products.

Currently, HappyFresh Supermarket has been launched in major cities in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. It provides more than 15,000 SKUs consisting of fresh, dried and frozen products stored in three closely monitored temperature zones.

In just a few months after launch, the company saw tremendous customer interest, with user growth of 300% on a monthly basis.

“We’re setting up more facilities to increase our coverage area and provide much greater accessibility to meet this demand. Daily necessities are in our DNA,” said HappyFresh Co-founder & CEO Guillem Segarra.

He also said that currently his platform has served total orders on a scale of millions per year. They have also partnered with almost many major supermarkets in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. To date, the company also has more than 50 supermarket chain partners and hundreds of specialty stores.

“We have launched 15 HappyFresh Supermarket facilities in three countries. In Indonesia, we have reached most of the Greater Jakarta area, and several other dark stores (virtual stores) will be ready soon,” he added.

Feedback On Quick Commerce Trends

As is known, the focus of quick commerce services that have recently emerged is also on grocery fulfillment. The difference is that they promise instant delivery in 10-15 minutes — two local players who have recently hit the spotlight are Bananas and Astro.

While in other countries, the quick commerce model has also become popular, such as Gorillas in Europe and Zepto in India.

Responding to this, HappyFresh Indonesia Managing Director Filippo Candrini said, “Based on our experience in observing online grocery consumer behavior, we know that most consumers plan their purchases by choosing various products from various categories and storing them in their shopping carts.”

This is also the main reason they built HappyFresh Supermarket as an online grocery. By utilizing available technology and facilities, HappyFresh can accommodate more SKUs in virtual stores.

This number tends to be larger than the capacity of dark store quick commerce – with delivery times of only 30 minutes or at certain hours according to user preferences (for full-weekly grocery basket services).

“In this way, we prevent the risk of spoiling groceries or jeopardizing the safety of our delivery driver-partners,” added Filippo. From this hypothesis, HappyFresh still believes that the current model is the most relevant to market needs.

And in the end, focusing on product quality will be the main key to the survival of online grocery services. In other words, HappyFresh will not take part in the frenzy of quick commerce just yet.

Split Share With Grab

Other news that was conveyed in the interview session was the GrabFresh service which had been discontinued since early 2021.

This was conveyed by HappyFresh Co-Founder & CTO Fajar Budiprasetyo, according to him the service was no longer relevant to continue – meaning that currently his party is determined to expand standalone service.

Also for product innovation, it is focused on increasing HappyFresh’s service capabilities, both on mobile and on the website.

Apart from this news, HappyFresh also believes that the online grocery sector in Indonesia is still at a growth stage, there are still many things that can be explored.

On their platform, they saw a large number of users who grew into repeat online wholesale customers, with their monthly purchase frequency and total spending increasing. This is a sign that they are buying more groceries online.