The online shopping service available in Colruyt supermarkets, Collect&Go, has now also started using its own staff to deliver groceries to clients' homes in the Brussels-Capital Region and Antwerp.
The Covid-19 pandemic resulted in an unprecedented growth of the e-commerce food market in Belgium, and online shopping services have only gained in popularity since then, as existing customers ordered more frequently and in larger volumes.
“Today, we see that the spectacular growth that characterised the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic is slowing down. We do notice, however, that more and more customers have found their way to online shopping," said Tom De Prater, Collect&Go manager, in a press release.
The Collect&Go service allows clients to place their grocery orders online, after which a Colruyt employee will do their shopping for them. Clients can then pick up their groceries at a time that is convenient for them.
Neighbourhood deliverers
In the middle of the pandemic, the supermarket launched an extra service, called 'Drivers', allowing people living in a particular neighbourhood to deliver the groceries that other people living in the same area had ordered. That way, people did not have to go to the supermarket during lockdowns.
In a short time, Collect&Go attracted some 500 active Drivers, making home delivery possible around the cities of Bruges, Ghent, Hasselt, Liège, Roeselare, Wavre, Halle and Antwerp during the pandemic.
Now, the service is being expanded to the cities of Leuven and Namur, followed by Turnhout, Kortrijk and Ostend at the end of June. “We are committed to ensuring that within one year, half of Belgian households will have access to home delivery via Collect&Go,” said De Prater.
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Collect&Go will now some 20 of its own drivers in the Brussels and Antwerp regions to those 500 individual Drivers already delivering groceries to people in their neighbourhood. By next year, the chain wants to employ at least 40 of its own deliverers, and expand to other regions.
All groceries delivered to homes by Collect&Go employees depart from Collect&Go's e-distribution centre in Londerzeel (between Brussels and Antwerp) and are sent to Collect&Go collection points. To have groceries delivered to their home, customers pay a €7 contribution in addition to the €5.95 fee for preparing the groceries.
