Market Research
Delivering at home is a growing market at the moment. You will see that lots of startups are popping up in the Netherlands, all with different types of delivery systems, home services, etc. Before starting with selecting a type of market that we want to focus on, we first have to research what markets already exist. For this, we mainly focussed on the Netherlands and we looked at which type of companies already support local businesses.
There are not many existing businesses that try to bring local (food) products to local consumers. However, in the biggest cities in the Netherlands there are some that are worthwhile to mention.
This company focuses on local food, and brings it via a delivery bus to the rest of the Netherlands. The company has started since 2020 and can be seen as a typical example of delivering local healthy food to local consumers. Their advantage is that they can deliver throughout the whole Netherlands. However, their disadvantage is that they do not allow buying at the spot. Every product has to be bought online.
This company delivers food from restaurants to homes. It is a bit similar to Thuisbezorgd. Similar to De Lokalist, you need to order beforehand.
Fietsdiensten or Fietskoeriers or Cycloon
The bikes from these companies have been used as delivery services for local products at local businesses to deliver the produce at home.
This website is a combination of all local stores in Arnhem. This website serves as a click-through website for the local shops. So they do not sell directly on their website, but guide the viewer to all the web shops.
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This can be seen as a typical example where you order food and non-food of local businesses online on one central website. This will be delivered at home by
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someone on a bike. The service is extremely useful in big cities where you can order online while supporting local businesses.
The SRV bus is probably one of the most well-known examples of a food delivery system where you can shop on the spot.
It has existed for quite a long time already. However, their success is decreasing since they do not always drive in the whole Netherlands anymore. Nowadays they mostly drive in Friesland.
Positive characteristics
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They cover a wide range of products, small version of a supermarket
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Decision can be made physically at home
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Negative characteristics
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Broad value proposition. Not directed towards one type of product department
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Outdated, does not attract young people
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Not sustainable, mostly the bus is driving on diesel
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People can get the same products in the supermarket
The biggest problem with the SRV bus is that they do not have a specific directed value proposition. They do not focus on a specific market segment. Therefore, they will be outperformed by either the supermarket, or a quicker at home delivery system.
HelloFresh is a company that delivers food boxes at home. They offer a subscription with which consumers can order a box with fresh and healthy food. As a consumer, you have the option to deliver these boxes from three to five times per week. Within these boxes, HelloFresh puts a recipe card about how to prepare the food, which can be done in roughly 30 minutes.
Positive characteristics
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Products are healthy and fresh
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Home delivery
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Always sure of food at home (as long as you order)
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Different sized boxes that can be customized
Negative characteristics
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You have to eat what has been given in the box (what, how much, and taste)
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You pay more than when you buy the same products at a supermarket
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Products are not close local
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Only accessible for people that have internet (not all elderly)
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You need to be at home
In general, HelloFresh can be one of the biggest competitors, since they also offer fresh food. However, they do not focus on bringing local farm shops together with local consumers. With our service, the consumer will know the origin of every product we sell.
Picnic is a typical example of an online supermarket. They have the same product range as a supermarket, but they only focus on home delivery. Within their app, you can select the products you like to order, you choose a delivery moment, and your box will be at home delivered if you order before 22.00 o’clock. You do need to place an order above 35 euros, but you do not pay for delivery costs.
Positive characteristics
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Products are healthy and fresh
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Home delivery
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Always sure of food at home (as long as you order)
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Wide variety of products
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Easy for people that have mobility difficulties
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No additional (delivery) costs
Negative characteristics
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You cannot easily buy a forgotten product afterwards
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You have to eat what has been given in the box (what, how much, and taste)
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Products are not close local
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Only accessible for people that have internet (not all elderly)
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You need to be at home
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Minimum of 35 order price
Picnic their value proposition is different from ours. Where we focus on local products, they focus on a supermarket's wide range of products. Therefore, they will not directly become a big competitor of our service, but it might be wise to keep them in mind for the future and watch an eye on how they are progressing (especially if they include local products in their product range).
Market overwiew
In order to understand what the spectrum of markets is, an overview has been made. Both the right side and left side in this overview are existing markets. On the left side are the markets that exist fully online. They focus on online orders that will be delivered at home. At the right side is the SRV example. This is focussed on fully offline selling on the spot.
An option, of course, is to participate into one of these existing markets. However, it will become very difficult to be different from your competitors. It is likely that the
right side is outdated, so going into that direction can give a high failure rate. The left side is completely not outdated, so there is a possibility to make money here. However, you will not be unique and there is a chance that anyone else already did it.
The optimal solution would therefore be something in the middle: a combination with online and offline. You will in this way have on the one hand an online platform that will attract today’s people and on the other a platform that will attract other people that like to buy on the spot.
Based on this overview with the possible markets to enter, we decided to have a service for local businesses, where we transport their products to specific areas/places where we will sell these for them as a support to reach out to a wider audience. The
reasoning for this is that this is more innovative than a SRV bus, but this also differentiates us from new existing solutions. This service should be in combination with an app/website in order to follow up with today’s online trends.
Products to sell
Everyday products
Example products
Product categories
It is hard to say what people are generally missing at home, since this differs for everyone. However, people will always have needs and wishes for certain products that they need every day, their entire lifetime. Examples of some of those needs are:
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Food
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Water
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Clothes
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Cleaning products
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Kitchenware
And example of product services people might wish for at home:
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Fresh bread in the morning
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Fresh meat
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Fresh vegetables and eggs
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New clothes, depending on trends and seasons
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These things are usually harder to get, since these things are not always accessible for everybody. In general, we have been able to define four main business/product categories:
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Unprocessed Food
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Vegetables and fruit → Farmers, local stores or markets
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Dairy Products → Farmers, markets or farm owned stores
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Jams → Local stores
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Spices → Local stores or markets
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Meat → Butchers or farmers
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Processed Food
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Sweets → Local stores, café’s
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Snacks → Snackbar
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Savory → Bakeries, café’s, hotels
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Drinks → Café’s, bars
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Clothing
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Shoes → Local shops
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Daily clothing → Local shops
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Special wear (weddings etc.) → Local shops (with professional knowledge)
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Working clothes → Local shops
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Underwear → Local shops
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Baby Clothes → Local shops
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Household items
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Baby items
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Furniture
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Equipment
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Books
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Make-up
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Bikes
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Gifts
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Flowers
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Souvenirs
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Toys
What we should keep in mind for all these products, is that we should have a unique value proposition. Something that does not exist already. We also should focus on something that people want to have. Research among 4343 people in England has shown that people are buying more food products from farms since the pandemic started. The results have shown that more people are supporting the local community. In the end just a very small percentage (9%) said that they preferred to go back to the situation before the pandemic (local food related). This indicates that there is a growing market for local food from farms. Also in the Netherlands, more and more food from farmers is directly going to the end consumer.
Transportation systems
Food does not get delivered automatically. It has to be done by some type of transportation. Therefore, we have looked at the different transportations systems available. For this, a wide range of categories were considered.
SWOT Analysis
As a conclusion from the market research phase, we made up a swot analysis. This SWOT analysis is based on the current principal of having the bus driving around, selling products at specific locations.
What we can conclude from this SWOT analysis is that there are lots of strengths and opportunities for this Product Service System. However, there are some weaknesses and threats that should be taken into careful consideration.
