Several major convenience wholesalers are in talks with rapid grocery delivery companies to provide partnership opportunities for local stores.

Better Retailing can reveal that trials of a service called Drop Shop will launch later this month in a Premier and a Lifestyle Express store in Scotland, with a further UK-wide rollout planned next year.

Working with Drop Shop is former Premier and Snappy Shopper retailer Faisal Naseem, who was approached by the company following his success with home deliveries during the Coronavirus pandemic.

He said: “I sold the shop last year when it was doing 200 deliveries a day at £30,000 in sales per week.

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“The retail background behind Drop Shop gives it an edge over rival home delivery services. We just launched the app in two stores this month.

“We’ll have customer loyalty programmes and offer branded reward schemes, providing customers with free items.

“We’ll also aim to deliver in 30-to-60 minutes, while offering retailers a better commission structure than existing providers. “We’re also working with the likes of PayPal. This means retailers will get payment into their accounts as soon as their driver makes a delivery.”

Naseem added it was targeting “gradual growth” in partnered store numbers to ensure a good response from retailers. “We want to keep loyalty and it’s about strategically planning that out,” he said.

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Drop Shop has caught the attention of Scottish wholesaler United Wholesale Grocers. The company’s managing director, Amaan Ramzan, told Better Retailing the two firms have been in discussions for a timed exclusivity period in Scotland and the north-east of England, but nothing official has been agreed yet.

Similarly, a senior source at Booker claimed the firm has been examining opportunities to offer rapid delivery services to its retailers, and has held discussions with Gorillas.

The start-up offers deliveries within 10 minutes in six UK cities. It partnered with Tesco in October to install “micro-fulfilment” centres in five of the supermarket’s stores.

Another source told Better Retailing: “No names have been mentioned, but Booker is definitely looking to partner up.”

When asked about the potential partnership, a Booker spokesperson told Better Retailing: “It has widely reported in the press that Tesco Group are running a trial with Gorillas, but this does not involve Booker.”

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