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Five years of Picnic: lessons in e-grocery delivery
Dutch e-groceries company Picnic is celebrating its first five years. Maybe they don’t make a profit yet; Picnic chooses to grow fast. But, those first five years brought disruptive and inspiring lessons about creating ‘rust, reinheid en regelmaat’. Or as Picnic states: milkman 2.0.
Focus
The most important lesson is Picnic’s focus. Not everyone, not everything, and not everywhere. With a relatively small assortment, a limited number of time windows from which the consumer can choose, only in carefully chosen neighborhoods and with a controlled rollout in the Netherlands and Germany. Despite a limited number of time windows, the consumer is immediately told when ordering at what time the groceries will arrive. Delivery? At Picnic, it’s for free. Due to the low minimum order value, customer retention is high. Consumers buy frequently, just like that old milkman.
As a new consumer, you may have to wait until a spot comes available in the Picnic delivery network. Picnic deals with it playfully. A ‘wait softener’ was installed for the many thousands of customers who were not yet allowed to order. As an ‘online only’ player you don’t harm the existing stores. With Albert Heijn Compact, Dutch competitor Albert Heijn now also seems to opt for less complexity.
