Even going to the supermarket takes ten minutes, counting getting dressed and looking for keys. At least in big cities. During this time, some delivery services want to get your food order to your door. The start-ups naturally concentrate on metropolitan areas. Otherwise such a super express delivery would not be realistic. But how good are the delivery services? How good is the selection at Gorillas, Bring & Co? How big are the delivery areas? And how quickly do the services deliver? We try to give you an overview and dare to make a comparison.
Delivery in 10 minutes: how does it work?
The express services deliver from different warehouses that they have rented in inner-city locations. The following applies: the closer to the customer, the better. Some of these are shops that are no longer in use or vacant office space. In particular, those areas that are centrally located but are not easy to find for walk-in customers are of interest for delivery services. Because walk-in customers or passers-by in front of the warehouse only disturb when a delivery is pending.
After placing your order, someone immediately walks into the warehouse and collects the items you have ordered, packs them in a paper bag and gives them to one of the e-bike drivers who are waiting in front of the door. Collecting the order often takes no more than a minute or two. This is made possible by a small selection, a good warehouse structure and skillful logistics. The bike messenger then has five to eight minutes to bring the bag to you.
One thing is clear: this cannot work with a weekly purchase. But customers who do their weekly shopping are not even the target group of the express delivery services. Rather, they want to get customers to place small orders more often with the items that are currently needed. The fact that you don’t want to replace weekly shopping is also shown by the manageable number of articles and the fact that you can only order via the app.
(Berlin) express delivery services at a glance
The best known is probably the Delivery service gorillas be. The start-up raised millions of euros to set up the service and is now active in eight German cities. It is important to note that there is no contiguous delivery area. Gorillas is clearly cherry-picking and delivers where the target group lives and works. The exact areas have gorillas linked on his website.
The same also applies to Flink and Bring, our two comparison candidates. good operates in a total of 25 cities and also supplies parts of Krefeld, Offenbach, Bonn and Mainz, for example. You can find the exact delivery areas on the Flink website.
Only in the capital Berlin and surrounding places like Potsdam and Hennigsdorf is the third provider in our mini overview: Bring. The service, which has nothing to do with the shopping list app of the same name, will also be launched in other cities. A look at the website shows that one is apparently preparing for Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Leipzig, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Dresden, Dortmund, Stuttgart, Hanover and Munich, among others. Interesting here: The Bring warehouse is also a real supermarket where you can go shopping. However, delivery can also take more than 10 minutes.
The Turkish provider is new bring. The service delivers from a minimum order value of 10 euros – currently only in Berlin. Where exactly, you keep a low profile. Only after an address check will you find out whether you are in the delivery area or not. Getir pays the delivery costs.
Also Amazon is involved in the express food market, but does not want to deliver within 10 minutes. But meanwhile you can at Amazon Fresh order a same day delivery. Amazon Fresh is available to Prime members in Munich, Berlin and Potsdam. There is no additional membership fee for the use of Amazon Fresh and orders – depending on the postcode area and availability – can be placed for delivery within a few hours on the same day. Prime members can order in available delivery areas until 7 p.m. and receive their delivery on the same day. Alternatively, in addition to a 2-hour delivery window, you can now also choose a 1-hour delivery window in which the messenger should come in the corresponding areas. But you have to spend at least 20 euros for one purchase. The delivery costs 3.99 euros, from 80 euros it is free.
What is the price of groceries by delivery service?
In order to be able to compare the prices of the services, we created a mini shopping cart with a liter of milk (3.5% fat), a bottle of cola (1 liter), a mango, a portion of pork schnitzel and a pack of spaghetti. If there were several brands to choose from, we took the cheapest. The chosen delivery area was always in the east of Berlin.
The gorillas deliver these items to us at reasonable costs: milk 1.19 euros, cola 1.19 euros, mango 1.89 euros, pork schnitzel 6.49 euros (300 grams, Havelländer organic pork), spaghetti 2.29 euros. The delivery costs 1.80 euros, so we pay 14.85 euros together.
Bring charges these costs: milk 1.39 euros, cola 1.09 euros, mango 2.19 euros, spaghetti 0.95 euros. The purchase had to remain vegetarian, however, pork schnitzel is not on offer. This shopping cart is too small for Bring to deliver. You assume a turnover of 25 euros, but then deliver for free. We only get 5.62 euros – without the schnitzel. However, it doesn’t deliver as quickly as the gorillas. It should take up to 30 minutes.
Flink charges us for our mini shopping: milk 1.29 euros, cola 1.19 euros, mango 2.90 euros, spaghetti 1.69 euros. Here too: no pork schnitzel on offer. As with gorillas, delivery takes place for a one-off 1.80 euros. Without the expensive pork schnitzel, we pay 8.87 euros for convenient home delivery.
At Amazon Fresh, we cannot do our trial purchase in this form, as there is no individual bottle of cola, for example. Alternatively, we can buy four 0.5 liter bottles for EUR 3.79. The additional costs: milk 1.29 euros, mango 3.22 euros, spaghetti 0.49 euros and the pork schnitzel (Ludwigsluster pork schnitzel from the upper shell, 360 g) costs 5.06 euros. We stay under 20 euros, so that Amazon would not accept this order.
Prices and product range at Gorillas and Co.
The prices correspond to the upscale supermarket level. As a rule, however, you also get branded items for this. And you don’t have to step outside the door. Although Gorillas was the most expensive provider in our example, it was also the only one who could deliver everything. But that can look different in other regions.
Not only groceries are available from delivery services. For example, we noticed with the gorillas that we could have ordered diapers. If you consider that the diapers will be with you within ten minutes, this can save one or the other unpleasant situation if the purchase of the same has been forgotten. We also saw corona rapid tests, toothpaste and detergents while shopping online. However, the express services cannot replace a large supermarket like Kaufland. For spontaneous purchases, however, the express delivery services are certainly a good addition.
Different cities, different services
The providers we have mentioned up to this point are only a small selection that can currently be found. Many services are currently only working in individual regions or cities. So offers knuspr.de his services only in Munich. Bringoo is only on the road in Hamburg, but probably also wants to start in Berlin. Getfaster.io tries his luck in Düsseldorf. Further services are in the starting blocks. So names like Getir with origins in Turkey are traded for a start in Germany. So it pays to keep your eyes open to see which services are active in your city. Sooner or later, however, there will be consolidations again in this industry, with providers then disappearing from the market.
There are also other delivery services that deliver groceries to your door. Only then, not in 10 or 30 minutes, but in a few hours or days. Perfect for weekly shopping.
