INTERVIEW
From farm to cart: E-grocer delivers fresh produce
HappyFresh relies on its customer behaviour database in determining product offerings.
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resh and never out-of-stock—this has been the cornerstone of HappyFresh’s strategy. And how does this e-grocery keep its massive 15,000 stock units of products fresh? HappyFresh CEO Guillian Segarra said that it is through sourcing directly from the farmers. Through its digital store, HappyFresh Supermarket, the e-grocer not only offers fresh products but also free delivery. This enables the company to cope with the trends in consumer behaviours toward a healthy lifestyle. Segarra spoke with Retail Asia and discussed what more can be expected from the e-grocer. How has HappyFresh performed in 2021 and what are the factors that drove these results? Both 2020 and 2021 have been our best years, so far, both in terms of overall newly-acquired customers and monthly active users. Also, in 2021 we delivered millions of orders. Compared to 2018, we were in the hundred-thousands range. We grew three or four times year on year. The external factor for this is that the Southeast Asian region, especially Indonesia, was already going through a massive digital transformation. A Temasek article said that throughout 2020, over 50% to 60% of people actually tried groceries online for the first time. There are internal factors, as well. We were probably the service in the groceries that benefited the most because we've been in the region for five to six years. We already had a recognised brand, a household brand. We had solid operations. More importantly, we already had the leadership position. When people think about groceries for the first time, HappyFresh is probably the household name that first comes to mind, and that's why we had a lot of new customers coming in then. The second internal aspect is that we always focus on quality, customer experience, and delivering superior value propositions. A lot of the customers who tried for the first time continue using our services even after the lockdown. Now we have a large number of new users, and especially an even larger number of repeat users, which has driven growth throughout 2021 and the beginning of 2022. Do you expect the same performance in 2022? Do you expect any challenges down the line? We saw a shift in purchasing behaviour throughout 2020 and 2021 and it’s not going back. People are already used to shopping for groceries online. After you've done it more than once and you've gotten good service, good value for money, we just don't go back. For 2022, what we see is that all these new customers that came in the last two years will be staying with us and that's driving the growth.
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RETAIL ASIA
When people think about groceries, HappyFresh is the household name that comes to mind (Photo: Guillian Segarra, CEO, HappyFresh)
This year, we are also aggressively expanding our newest service, HappyFresh Supermarket. As we have better control over things like branding, pricing, packaging, last-mile delivery, or opening hours, we can cater for more and more users. That's driving significant growth for us this year. At the beginning of this year, we’ve already seen it and we expect this to continue throughout 2022. If anything, we expect 2022 to be our best year thus far. I think it would be a combination of the HappyFresh Supermarket addressing a larger pool of customers or a larger addressable market, overall customer shifts, and the penetration of groceries that continue on increasing exponentially.
People are already used to shopping for groceries online. After you've gotten good service, good value for money, we just don't go back
Can you tell us more about the HappyFresh Supermarket and how will this help the company's goals? When you go into the HappyFresh app, you would see all our supermarket partners that we historically have and we are still going to work with them. They are a key part of our ecosystem. But you will also see a digital store called HappyFresh Supermarket. Within that store, you will be able to find anything around 15,000 products curated by using the five to six years of customer behaviour data, and understanding what products are made for your daily and weekly shopping. Those products will be offered to you at a very competitive pricing, high-quality source and with free
