A home delivery company promising local shops better commercial terms and better rural coverage than Uber Eats or Deliveroo has rolled out its Amazon-like model across the UK.
Click it Local works with 1,500 small shops in Cambridge, Essex, Brighton and Surrey, but is now taking on new retailers from farther afield.
Unlike other services, customers can order products from across multiple retailers, which are then picked by Click it Local and delivered together the next day.
Co-founder Steve Koch said the service, only available to independent shops, allows them “to really compete with the likes of an Amazon or a large supermarket.”
He said: “The idea is to pull all those independents and all those products together on one platform to create a firm marketplace, but only for independent businesses.
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The platform has a massive range of products and a multitude of categories including food, drinks and fashion.”
While other online ordering platforms, such as Uber Eats and Deliveroo, which also offer to deliver the goods for stores, take a commission of up to 30% of the transaction value, Click it Local takes 7.5% and charges no signup fee.
Al-Amin stores is an award-winning convenience and grocery store in Cambridge. Owner Abdul Arain has been working with Click It Local since the company’s launch last year.
He said the store’s average order value through the service was £30 and described the company as “amicable and honourable”.
Arain told Better Retailing: “Imagine being able to supply customers up to 20 miles away for a fraction of the delivery cost, that’s what this does because it groups together local businesses.
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“A customer who lives in Bury St Edmonds and works in Cambridge used to come in every morning to buy his wife croissants.
“He works from home, but instead of losing that customer, this service means we still have that business.”
Koch said by focusing on same and next day delivery rather than ‘on demand’ Click it Local can go beyond the usual urban areas covered by other services.
“We collect everything on that day and then we do all our deliveries, so our deliveries is more planned or stated route.
“We basically do rural areas. In Cambridge we covered a 13-mile radius who could get delivery the same day,” he added.
PayPoint, Snappy Shopper and Gorillas in their midst
The rollout came in the same week that delivery rival firms also announced expansions of their business.
Gorillas, a company offering grocery delivery in 10 minutes or less, upped its advertising to customers and potential delivery agents in Nottingham and London last week.
The company operates out of warehouse ‘dark sites’ to compete with other convenience stores providing delivered goods in the same areas.
Snappy Shopper is also eying expansion with the help of its new investor, PayPoint.
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The payments company acquired a £6.6m share of Snappy Shopper last week, bagging PayPoint chief executive Nick Wiles a seat on the delivery company’s board.
Shortly before the deal was announced, PayPoint hit the phones to try and recruit its outlets into partnering with Snappy Shopper, with a number of retailers reporting being contacted by the company.
Snappy Group cofounder Mike Callachan said interest from investors “exceeded our expectations”, but also warned of growing competition from the likes of Gorillas.
“The increasing number of anonymous dark stores is a threat to local businesses and communities, which must not be underestimated,” he said.
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