Sunday, October 21, 2007

Individual Home Delivery

The retail cooperatives in Japan has successfully operated a system of individual home delivery of groceries for more than 20 years.

It operates as follows:

* the customer places an order
* the groceries are delivered to their homes at specified times

It works well for the following:

* special products (e.g. organic) not available from the supermarkets
* heavy items
* for busy customers

Several businesses have tried to provide this service in Singapore. It does not seem to work well. What are the reasons?
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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can think of few reasons. First the Japanese society is used to such service and pay for it. Also, the food cost is expansive in Japanese. So delivery cost is only a small portion of total. Such service in Singapore is considered expansive compared to the value of the food. Besides, here we have maids who can do the shopping so why pay more?

Isabel

October 21, 2007 11:54 AM
Anonymous said...

Perhaps the convenience of big and small grocery shops almost everywhere in Singapore?
The charges for delivery are unattractive?
Customers prefer to see fresh groceries before buying?
The enjoyment from shopping is too great to refuse for almost every local?

starlight.

October 21, 2007 3:47 PM
jiante said...

I have tried out NTUC's Fairprice online shopping a few times and I must say that it was a positive experience. The delivery charge is cheap at $5 and usually grocery shopping for my household will amount to several hundreds.

It also saves the time and effort having to lug back all the groceries (especially the bulky toilet paper and the drinks) I think you should try it out sometimes.

October 21, 2007 4:52 PM
hongjun said...

Yes. The Japanese are used to such service. For Singaporeans, we prefer to go down and buy food supplied ourselves. We prefer to pick ourselves.

hongjun

October 21, 2007 8:35 PM
Anonymous said...

Perhaps with the Japanese, honour is very important so they get fresh goods delivered on time. In other countries one may get rotten goods delivered not on time somemore. Also, the distances from homes in Singapore to the nearest grocery store is not as far? Singaporeans need to go out and shop as shopping in a supermarket by itself is an interesting experience.

October 22, 2007 2:35 AM
Khiat Han Hwee Adrian said...

Singaporeans are thrifty and are good in savings these type of small dollars.
The thought of having to pay that few extra dollars for delivery will put most them off.

October 23, 2007 10:50 AM

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