GrabMart expands into ‘instant retail’

KUALA LUMPUR: During the Movement Control Order (MCO), many convenience and grocery businesses were able to achieve a three times increase in sales via the GrabMart service.

Today, as more businesses are gradually reopening, more consumers are looking for safe, convenient ways to shop for their daily retail needs.

In addition to the government’s Pelan Jana Semula Ekonomi Negara (Penjana), the homegrown tech enabler and proponent of the digital economy shared their next phase in supporting retail businesses to move forward in the ‘new normal’.

“While we saw a clear uplift to safe, instant deliveries for food, drinks, snacks and other essential goods via GrabFood, GrabMart and especially ‘Pasar’ on GrabMart, we see a new challenge for retailers,” Grab Malaysia managing director Sean Goh said.

“The ‘new normal’ will potentially affect retailers who traditionally rely on high foot traffic and walk-ins - from health and beauty retailers, toys, gifts and stationery shops to florists.

“This is a gap where we believe GrabMart is able to step in and address, while helping to make the government’s upcoming Shop Malaysia Online initiative a success.”

GrabMart is Grab’s latest service launched in November last year and has since expanded beyond Klang Valley to other cities such as Johor Bahru, Kota

Kinabalu, Kuching, Ipoh, Melaka and Penang.

Leveraging on GrabMart, the homegrown company aims to help retail small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and chains achieve two key objectives.

These are meeting customer expectations for safe and ‘instant’ delivery and enabling retail stores to access millions of consumers living and working nearby.

Customers are evolving into ‘on-demand shoppers’ who are already accustomed to using mobile technology for their daily needs, and increasingly expect faster speed and safety for their retail purchases.

With more than 120,000 delivery partners nationwide, Grab is consistently optimising its technology to improve the delivery efficiency.

“In fact, we recorded a consistently high level of service, with deliveries typically under 30 minutes for as low as RM5,” Goh added.

Today, retailers typically grow by investing heavily to expand their retail footprint. Nevertheless, physical stores are expensive to build and maintain, even as retail traffic reduces and consumers expect more instantaneous convenience and better accessibility.

With over 20 million downloads, the Grab platform enables retailers to leverage their existing network to serve a large community of tech-savvy users, and to increase their sales per store.”