From meals to shopping: Deliveroo’s app redefined

This is a significant milestone in our growth journey to offer consumers what they want and need for a wider set of occasions. The launch of our grocery delivery solution, Hop, gave us a playbook on how to scale businesses quickly and effectively. 

We also know there is consumer demand for shopping convenience as it was evident in search trends and grocery purchases from our existing selection of grocery partners. We are confident that we will be able to scale this and build a successful business.

What factors led to the belief that this evolution was essential, especially considering the existing competition in the market?

Our decision to embrace on-demand non-food/shopping delivery stems from a blend of consumer demand, strategic positioning, and the readiness of our existing infrastructure. While the market is competitive, the whole sector is still at an early stage.

Prior to this launch, we already had an excellent selection of groceries, pharmacies, pet stores and flower shops and with the onboarding of popular brands in homeware, toys, and electronics like Early Learning Centre, Tavola, and Geekay, along with local favourites like Eggs & Soldiers, Joi Gifts, and My Backyard Chronicles, we have entered the market with a competitive advantage. We are confident that with our brand’s strong association with convenience, coupled with consumers’ trust in timely deliveries, Deliveroo will seamlessly integrate non-food items into our ecosystem.

What were the strategic steps and processes implemented to optimise the user experience upon the app’s rollout?

Consumer insights from the app clearly indicated people searching for non-food items through our existing partners. For example, we have seen globally across Deliveroo App  71k Monthly searches for pet products, +76 percent YoY searches for home accessories, and 320k Monthly searches for beauty & personal care.

We’ve already been playing in this space and were well-positioned to take advantage of the opportunity. With clear value propositions already identified across various sectors like pharmacy, beauty, flowers, gifting, and pet items, the extension of Deliveroo into ‘Shopping’ was a natural extension for our business.  Our existing infrastructure, including consumers, riders, and innovative solutions geared to provide convenience, gave us a solid foundation to begin tapping into this space.

We also dedicated effort to enhance our technology to ensure consumers can effortlessly discover their desired items within a user-friendly interface. All retail partners and products are conveniently housed under the ‘Shopping’ section of the app, offering a one-stop shop for users and we also rolled out a new gifting functionality in the app, where consumers can select whatever they want to gift someone and mark this as a ‘gift’ at checkout and send receivers a trackable link to their order with an animated greeting card.

Deliveroo’s machine-learning-based search and discovery functionality also allows consumers to browse for a gifting occasion in app, for example a birthday, and they will instantly be offered a curated selection of gifting options.

Can you provide insights into the overarching strategy and long-term vision that guided Deliveroo in the expansion of its offerings?

Our company is on a trajectory of robust growth, and as we set our sights on 2024, our overarching objective is to extend the convenience of Deliveroo to every neighbourhood and deliver on our new mission ‘To transform the way you shop and eat, bringing the neighbourhood to your door by connecting consumers, restaurants, shops and riders.’  Our steadfast focus remains on delivering a seamless, efficient, reliable, and user-friendly experience for our valued partners, customers, and riders.

What features contribute to a seamless and transparent on-app experience for the customer?

Several factors contribute to our success. These include a substantial base of premium consumers, a user-friendly interface, a reliable and efficient fleet, and a steadfast commitment to quality and an increasing focus on providing value to our consumers. Now with the addition of ‘Shopping’ that houses all non-food items under a clear ‘Shopping’ tab, along with our live tracking and gifting feature, we’re giving consumers a proposition that stands out.

Does this expansion into a broader range of products signify a shift away from the core focus on food deliveries, or is it an integral part of Deliveroo’s overarching app strategy?

In our launch phase, we have onboarded Early Learning Centre, Tavola and Geekay, along with various local brands such as Eggs & Soldiers, Joi Gifts and My Backyard Chronicles. The international brands are household names with products that we believe will be exciting for our consumers and are very popular amongst consumers in the market.

Bringing on homegrown brands is part of our commitment to support local businesses by having them available on our platform. It is also about having a good selection of independent, neighbourhood and international shops; we intend to have a mix. Food still remains at the core of our business and shopping is a natural extension of the business. Instead of changing our focus, our goal is to transform the way people shop, just as how we transformed the way people eat.

With the launch of this new app experience launched in Q4 2023, can you shed light on the specific considerations for strategic reasons behind the timing of this new offering?

Our venture into Deliveroo Shopping is driven by a multitude of compelling consumer signals, such as increased search activity and grocery purchases within our platform. It represents a natural extension of our marketplace,  using two sides of the marketplace (consumers and riders) and adding to another (merchants). Importantly, we’re already playing in this space through existing partners from groceries to flower and pet shops, and we’re well positioned to take advantage of the opportunity to grow our offering and selection.

Another important reason was to debut the service during the festive season. This launch has rolled out just in time for the holiday season, so whether people need an emergency last-minute gift or just want to order whenever and wherever it suits them, they can rely on the convenience of Deliveroo.

How does the streamlined process for utilising Deliveroo’s gifting service enhance the user experience?

Our gifting functionality allows customers to mark any shopping or food item as a ‘gift’ at checkout and send receivers a trackable link to their order with an animated greeting card. Not only is it convenient but it helps our customers make their loved ones feel special with the tap of a button and ties in with our mission to cater for a wider set of consumer needs and occasions.

How does the integration of machine-learning-based search and discovery functionality contribute to personalised recommendations for specific occasions within the app?

Our machine-learning-based search and discovery functionality also allows consumers to browse for a gifting occasion in-app, for example, a birthday, and they will instantly be offered a curated selection of gifting options. This means that they won’t have to go on to specific stores to search for occasion-specific items – but will instead save time by viewing a curated selection of items.

In terms of strategy, can you elaborate on the forthcoming plans for advancing and elevating the app to the next level in the near future?

We’re very ambitious for this.  We’ll be bringing new partners and products onto the platform in the coming months, and we’re excited to see our customers respond to that. Overall, we are very pleased by the strength of our Consumer Value Proposition in shopping given we have just started, but we’re at the beginning of developing this proposition and are excited about scaling this and taking advantage of the opportunity it presents. We built a large grocery business in 5 years, 11 percent of the business and growing, and will use the same team and playbook to scale shopping.