In a city like New York where time is money, his success is blazing
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View of some neighborhood stores in New York.EFE
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The traditional “wineries” or neighborhood stores in New York, economic engine and the history of the city but also a meeting place for the community, are seeing their business jeopardized by the arrival of a series of food delivery companies that they promise their deliveries in a matter of minutes.
Winemakers fear that this competition will lead these businesses, almost all family-owned, to close permanently just when they were recovering from the impact of the crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, according to Francisco Marte, president of the Association of Wineries and Small Businesses , and Radhamés Rodríguez, from the United Bodegas of America.
It is no coincidence that both are Dominicans: of the 12,000 wineries estimated to be in New York, almost all outside the downtown area, the majority are in Latino hands, followed by Arabs, and according to Rodríguez’s data, they generate between 60,000 and 70,000 jobs.
The wineries are not mere shops – they emphasize – but a meeting place for the community, “where they arrive, speak, vent, it has been a safe haven for everyone.”
And although they have “traditional” delivery services, on foot or by bicycle, they cannot compete with companies like Buyk, Gorillas, Gopuff or Doordash – that promise deliveries in 15 minutes or less, through applications that the public easily access to. through the web. The secret to success is that these apps work within a one-mile (1.6-kilometer) radius.
In a city like New York where time is money, his success is blazing.
During the coronavirus shutdown, which forced New Yorkers to stay home, online grocery purchases soared as much as 230% compared to pre-pandemic levels, according to Gorillas, one of the apps operating in Europe. and that it has entered the United States market through New York, where it already has 13 locations in four of the five boroughs of the city.
Thanks to a regulatory vacuum, these companies have established mini-warehouses -in Brooklyn, Queens or Harlem- where they keep between 1,500 and 5,000 items: they are not traditional stores because they are not open to customers, and only deliverymen access them. Some call them “dark stores”.
A study of these places in Manhattan commissioned this month by the county presidency found that of the 22 that operate in the area they evaluated, only 4 are in areas designated for that type of business (food), said the president of the neighborhood, Gale Brewer, to the patch.com newspaper.
Brewer wrote to various city agencies last month, pressuring them to regulate new businesses, which take advantage of the fact that being a new type of business, they are not mentioned in zoning and licensing regulations.
AGAINST “LIFETIME” BUSINESSES
The arrival of applications has been “like stealing a market that we have served our entire lives,” said Marte.
The winemakers assure that the impact will be “strong” because sales will be lost and there will be wineries that will not be able to survive the loss of customers and the payment of rents of no less than $ 4,000 per month, plus electricity, taxes, insurance and salaries. .
“We need licenses to buy and sell and maybe they can do it with a single license, and they don’t need many employees.”
“We wineries were already suffering the impact of the arrival of department stores like Costco and BJ’S, and now also with the applications that have arrived and are reaching our neighborhoods,” Rodríguez also commented.
“We know that technology is what attracts everyone’s attention and that we have to get on that wave. I see that the Government has paid attention and given money to large companies but they have forgotten that those of us who have saved the neighborhoods they we provide service, we employ many people, we are in direct contact with the community, we feel with them and we do not want the wineries to disappear, “he said.
Last year, in the midst of the pandemic, the Dominican José Bello created the mybodega.online application in collaboration with the Association of Bodegueros y Pequeños Negocios so that customers of these businesses could make their purchase online.
With the entry of the apps, Latino winemaker organizations and the Yemeni American Merchants Association have launched the “Winemakers with Technology” campaign to raise $ 37,000 to fund mybodega.online, in an attempt to catch up with technology.
“You don’t have to compete, you can collaborate and our company is open to collaborating with these warehouses as long as they want to help the warehouses,” Bello told Efe.
By: Ruth E. Hernández Beltrán
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