5 ms·

Very interesting. My most immediate question would be whether or not your platform has gained traction in any specific geographic locations? How many stores are

Very interesting. My most immediate question would be whether or not your platform has gained traction in any specific geographic locations? How many stores are participating and what percentage of that local market do they represent? We've been working in a similar space (hyperlocal for furniture, home decor and fashion) for about 5 years with ATTIC (https://attic.city https://attic.city). The premise of our work runs a bit contrary and challenges a platform like this -- the primary issue is store willingness to participate in yet another platform. Putting grocery stores aside, most other retail stores have too much to do and manage on the tech/marketing front: facebook, instagram, twitter, pinterest, snapchat etc. Add on their own website with its own e-commerce platform plus several other shopping or delivery platforms (etsy, posh etc) -- it's too much. As a result we've ended up with extremely fragmented marketplaces and none do a good job of showing a comprehensive view of your local shopping options. For example, some restaurants I like are on X. Others are on Y. Others still are on Z. Like I said, we came at this problem from a different angle. We're indexing local stores to build the platform that actually has a comprehensive view of a local market -- and to fill in the gap that services like Google Shopping do a poor job of representing. It's slightly slower out of the gate as we do some preliminary research for each city/market. But we've launched ATTIC in 9 major US markets so far and expect to be at 15 by year's end. As an aside, do you know where you first came across the term hyperlocal? I wonder who coined it. We've been using it as well, but we're certainly not the first.

bardworx 7y ago
I am not affiliated with this project but can give you some insight as I've spent a significant time in hospitality industry and build a delivery system for a QSR. Most restaurants that focus on delivery are QSRs. While full service does deliver, usually, its not their main focus. Within the QSR space, brands are mostly broken down by number of locations which influences their decision making with regard to their technology. Most established brands in Tier 1 markets do focus on technology heavily: its a significant revenue stream. However, their approach differs. The McDs, Penera, Panda Express, Chipotle of the world usually stick to only one platform. The focus more on integration of Delivery, POS, and inventory more than covering significant amount of platforms. Some decide to use an off the shelf solution while others use a 3rd party delivery system on top of whatever their POS provider brings. There is significant complexity in this paragraph and they all approach it differently but the gist is the same. Smaller brands that have ~1,000 locations or less begin to splinter into 2 groups: some focus on similar integration as above while others will support multiple platforms via several tablets. Since the revenue stream is significant, they focus on Ops to get everything in line and have gotten to be extremely good at managing/streamlining the process. Its not perfect but it works. Brands between 20-500 locations will also manage multiple platforms but some invest into "aggregate" providers. Such companies will build out a unified backend for the location and integrate with multiple marketplaces (Grub, Door Dash, proprietary, etc.) to unify the system. Usually, they use a 3rd party for the admin that already has the infrastructure (OLO comes to mind). While in this approach streamlines operations, its quite costly as they charge for volume of orders. Brands with less than 20 locations usually resort to just using 3-5 tablets on their walls for orders. As a disclaimer, these are generalities and there are other factors that influence decision makers such as franchising percentages, Tier 1/2/3 markets, and their overall approach. So to answer your question: most brands are currently moving to aggregate platforms or manage fewer platforms in order to streamline their operations. Large brands also use Yext to streamline their on-line marketing presence or other providers.
- technotarek 7y ago
  Thanks. Very interesting. I gather your response was mostly in reference to food delivery services. The OP was suggesting this as a platform for more than food, which is what I'm primarily interested in. It's retail shops that are less experienced with and newer to the idea of everything needs to be delivered right away that I'm curious about. Having said that, our original focus was on furniture stores who have always had to deal with fulfillment and delivery. The type of delivery is very different in nature though -- a 200lb sofa vs a 16oz burrito! Thanks again.
  - sumeetk 7y ago
    Yes it is more than just a food delivery platform ... it was originally designed for local shopping ... but i discovered that it can be used for food delivery as well ! Its primarily designed for fruits, vegetables, grocery, but you can use it for anything ... we are currently adding filtering by item specifications ... which might be more useful in your use-case ... Currently The delivery is provided by the shop-owner ... ... there is orders inventory ... where the shop-owners can keep track and update the order progress like if its packed and ready for delivery ... Its just another e-commerce platform which is more focussed for local shopping ! Hope that helps !
- sumeetk 7y ago
  Thank you for sharing your experience ... quite interesting ... to read ... what in your experience is better option for delivery ... delivery by the restaurant or the delivery by the aggregator platform ... The first is already there and we are planning to bring the latter one also to the software !
  - bardworx 7y ago
    In Tier 1 markets (big metro areas, in the US), aggregate platforms are the way to go. The main driver of this is liability insurance and worker's comps. There is also pressure from municipality laws on how delivery staff are titled: if they're delivery then you can subsidize their hourly rate w/ tips but they cannot perform more than 20% of their work as a regular employee (stocking, packing food, etc.) 2nd Tier markets (suburbia) have their own issues and intricacies since delivery is driven and liability insurance become a bigger issue + range. However, they haven't been as aggressive to move over to 3rd party delivery (unless we're talking large corp.)
y4mi 7y ago
> Use of the term originated in 1991, in reference to local television news content.[1] Check Wikipedia for more :) The [1] responds with NXDOMAIN though, can't be verified I guess?
sumeetk 7y ago
interestingly Hyperlocal wasn't in my dictionary ... i used to promote this project as something that could help in local shopping ... but then i discovered hyperlocal and i saw the concept is quite similar ! like y4mi pointed out ... there is a wikipedia article on this word https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlocal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlocal I started promoting this project only recently ... lets see how it goes !! In countries like India and even other parts of the world ... lot of small business --- mom and pop stores are losing business and not able to compete with bigger stores, malls like walmart ... This project was just an attempt to help them ... may be just technologically ... so that they could compete and stay technologically competitive with big business !
- technotarek 7y ago
  You have a lot of the same motivations we have when started ATTIC -- as in helping smaller retailer operations compete with the technical and marketing budgets of big business. To my original question, have you seen your platform in use anywhere? That is, has it been adopted to scale in any cities? Just wondering. If it's new and not there yet, no problem.
  - sumeetk 7y ago
    no ... it's not in use anywhere i believe ...

bardworx 7y ago

I am not affiliated with this project but can give you some insight as I've spent a significant time in hospitality industry and build a delivery system for a QSR. Most restaurants that focus on delivery are QSRs. While full service does deliver, usually, its not their main focus. Within the QSR space, brands are mostly broken down by number of locations which influences their decision making with regard to their technology. Most established brands in Tier 1 markets do focus on technology heavily: its a significant revenue stream. However, their approach differs. The McDs, Penera, Panda Express, Chipotle of the world usually stick to only one platform. The focus more on integration of Delivery, POS, and inventory more than covering significant amount of platforms. Some decide to use an off the shelf solution while others use a 3rd party delivery system on top of whatever their POS provider brings. There is significant complexity in this paragraph and they all approach it differently but the gist is the same. Smaller brands that have ~1,000 locations or less begin to splinter into 2 groups: some focus on similar integration as above while others will support multiple platforms via several tablets. Since the revenue stream is significant, they focus on Ops to get everything in line and have gotten to be extremely good at managing/streamlining the process. Its not perfect but it works. Brands between 20-500 locations will also manage multiple platforms but some invest into "aggregate" providers. Such companies will build out a unified backend for the location and integrate with multiple marketplaces (Grub, Door Dash, proprietary, etc.) to unify the system. Usually, they use a 3rd party for the admin that already has the infrastructure (OLO comes to mind). While in this approach streamlines operations, its quite costly as they charge for volume of orders. Brands with less than 20 locations usually resort to just using 3-5 tablets on their walls for orders. As a disclaimer, these are generalities and there are other factors that influence decision makers such as franchising percentages, Tier 1/2/3 markets, and their overall approach. So to answer your question: most brands are currently moving to aggregate platforms or manage fewer platforms in order to streamline their operations. Large brands also use Yext to streamline their on-line marketing presence or other providers.

technotarek 7y ago
Thanks. Very interesting. I gather your response was mostly in reference to food delivery services. The OP was suggesting this as a platform for more than food, which is what I'm primarily interested in. It's retail shops that are less experienced with and newer to the idea of everything needs to be delivered right away that I'm curious about. Having said that, our original focus was on furniture stores who have always had to deal with fulfillment and delivery. The type of delivery is very different in nature though -- a 200lb sofa vs a 16oz burrito! Thanks again.
- sumeetk 7y ago
  Yes it is more than just a food delivery platform ... it was originally designed for local shopping ... but i discovered that it can be used for food delivery as well ! Its primarily designed for fruits, vegetables, grocery, but you can use it for anything ... we are currently adding filtering by item specifications ... which might be more useful in your use-case ... Currently The delivery is provided by the shop-owner ... ... there is orders inventory ... where the shop-owners can keep track and update the order progress like if its packed and ready for delivery ... Its just another e-commerce platform which is more focussed for local shopping ! Hope that helps !
sumeetk 7y ago
Thank you for sharing your experience ... quite interesting ... to read ... what in your experience is better option for delivery ... delivery by the restaurant or the delivery by the aggregator platform ... The first is already there and we are planning to bring the latter one also to the software !
- bardworx 7y ago
  In Tier 1 markets (big metro areas, in the US), aggregate platforms are the way to go. The main driver of this is liability insurance and worker's comps. There is also pressure from municipality laws on how delivery staff are titled: if they're delivery then you can subsidize their hourly rate w/ tips but they cannot perform more than 20% of their work as a regular employee (stocking, packing food, etc.) 2nd Tier markets (suburbia) have their own issues and intricacies since delivery is driven and liability insurance become a bigger issue + range. However, they haven't been as aggressive to move over to 3rd party delivery (unless we're talking large corp.)

y4mi 7y ago

> Use of the term originated in 1991, in reference to local television news content.[1] Check Wikipedia for more :) The [1] responds with NXDOMAIN though, can't be verified I guess?

sumeetk 7y ago

interestingly Hyperlocal wasn't in my dictionary ... i used to promote this project as something that could help in local shopping ... but then i discovered hyperlocal and i saw the concept is quite similar ! like y4mi pointed out ... there is a wikipedia article on this word https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlocal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlocal I started promoting this project only recently ... lets see how it goes !! In countries like India and even other parts of the world ... lot of small business --- mom and pop stores are losing business and not able to compete with bigger stores, malls like walmart ... This project was just an attempt to help them ... may be just technologically ... so that they could compete and stay technologically competitive with big business !

technotarek 7y ago
You have a lot of the same motivations we have when started ATTIC -- as in helping smaller retailer operations compete with the technical and marketing budgets of big business. To my original question, have you seen your platform in use anywhere? That is, has it been adopted to scale in any cities? Just wondering. If it's new and not there yet, no problem.
- sumeetk 7y ago
  no ... it's not in use anywhere i believe ...