US Market
Mailpac Group, which is heavily into the e-commerce solutions business, has, through its Mailpac Local subsidiary, launched an online grocery store to grow market share, with a plan to retail products some five to 15 per cent less than traditional brick-and-mortar grocery chains and standalone shops islandwide. Mailpac appears undaunted by a market space that is getting increasingly crowded, exuding confidence that its price-cutting business model will land it ahead of the pack.
The admittedly nimble and fast-growing Mailpac is hunting a bigger share of a market where online grocery shopping is already offered by existing and emerging players, and with the chains it is seeking to undersell also ramping up their own online sales platforms over the past year in particular. Bulk goods seller PriceSmart and food manufacturing and distribution conglomerate Seprod are among the big companies already offering e-commerce services to customers. Another big food manufacturer and distributor, GraceKennedy, has said it is also planning to add a delivery component to its online service that now stops at kerbside pickup.
Mailpac Local Grocery hopes to gain competitive price advantage over large supermarket chains from its investment in technology and infrastructure, which company head Khary Robinson says allows for the online store to secure goods at a lower price reserved for large-scale distributors. Mailpac will add its own markup to the goods, but anticipates that consumers will see what Robinson describes as “meaningfully lower prices” on their monthly shopping bill, an offshoot, hopefully, of its supply arrangements and the discounts and promotions it plans to roll out.
The business, which will also provide doorstep delivery for its shoppers, is a development on the online shopping, in-store pickup and delivery service it has offered at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, in partnership with big grocery wholesaler and retailer PriceSmart, to shoppers under government-imposed lockdown at home or wary of crowds.
Prior to the start-up of Mailpac Local Grocery Store, the company invested in the acquisition of five new vehicles, the implementation of a virtual aisle-browsing feature to its online platform, and the addition of 30 new hires to serve its delivery partnerships that also included Hi-Lo Food Stores and The Stationery Centre.