Delivery in times of Corona No:1
Delivery! By far the most popular word in the food industry recently. Thanks to my clients I hear it often. The turnover of restaurants and cafes crashed to the ground during the «stay at home» period. The situation is similar in many sectors… All the products and services that people say “I can live without it” are abandoned by their customers. To overcome this situation, we worked closely, we took new decisions and applied them so rapidly. We had to deliver our products but firstly we should find a way to adapt to this new life. So recreating the demand and establishing a new supply chain was hard but possible. While efforts were underway to ensure that delivery is healthy and subject to the hygiene rules, we sought ways to reconstruct the demand. I know! The demand was not decreasing but disappearing. Did we succeed? Yes! Turnover’s winter sleep ends. Slowly but surely and thanks to these experiences, in a very short time I found the opportunity of building new communication strategies. I’m totally ready for the transformation of mobilization that we’ll all live soon.
We have learned very well what people buy just before they locked! From small to large, all the markets were more crowded than ever before, just a few hours before the confinement. Some cautious minorities started filling their houses, kitchens, rooms, cellars days before … When we go shopping especially 1 or 2 days before the confinement — most of us gets parlaysed for a moment, just before the checkout. The moment when we ask ourselves the question: « Did I buy everything I need? » Let me tell you the answer to this question: NO. It’s impossible, you cannot buy everything, you cannot do endless storage, or you should not … When it comes to food, the buying-selling cycle lasts; differentiates but lasts… We learned it better in the last months. We don’t need to worry about food…
People sometimes heat the food that they bought from a grocery in high temperatures, hoping to make them COVID free or wash them with soap. But wouldn’t it be much easier and safe to buy food from someone who claimed that his products are COVID-free and who describes his claim clearly?
Let me tell you an example. The first action of Amazon’s founder was to prepare and publish a video showing one of “Amazon’s Warehouse Visit” to the customers. Although this video may seem strange *, it achieved its goal shortly after it became online. (* strange, because you can see the shock of some of Amazon employees’ faces who sees Bezos. The video tried to show that this is a routine visit but we can see that it’s not from employees’ reactions) So it was obvious that this video tries to scream “we are clean” instead of “A day in Amazon”. Maybe using Amazon is safe thanks to their rules but we all know that when those products enter the cross-country circulation, third parties which cannot be controlled join this circulation and boom! There is no hygienically safe service left to be guaranteed.
This is an advantage! No, no, not one, but two advantages! Especially for small and medium-sized businesses and artisans… Why?
1. As the diameter grows, control becomes difficult, but if the diameter is small, you can give some promises to your customers.
2. The number of your competitors is fewer than ever. Even the biggest restaurant chains in the world have locked themselves with those chains. They are closed, but you are open or will be open.
Let’s reinforce the situation with an example… Let’s say you have a small restaurant, your favorite product of your menu is not a hamburger, but you trust your hamburger. Great, because thereis an opportunity for you these days.
If you have «most eaten » or « love-food» or « special dishes » in your menu and you trust ambitiously its taste this HERO may be the building block of your new future. Hold it and don’t leave it because it will support you, not only in revenue growth but also in brand awareness. If your place is the one & only place selling cookies, for sure it will be the « unforgettable »for a man who says “I need to eat a giant chocolate chip cookie ! », he will never forget you. Let’s say it’s time for being « unforgettable »
People who start internalizing the “stay at home” situation, will get bored much faster of home cooking. They are cooking for themselves and the other home crowd but it’s unbearable. Making the same dishes, trying to create something new, looking for new things from cookbooks and the media won’t be enough. And in the end, they will look for the change, and they will find this change in order. Tastes , recipes or just simple foods prepared by someone else will be like a gold mine. When this time comes, you should be there and ready…
Choose the hero of your menu, then start planning its delivery journey very quickly. I will explain this planning by giving hints in my next article.
