Russian online retailer Ozon has launched a 40-minute grocery delivery service in Moscow, with online orders fulfilled from a 4,000 sq m urban fulfillment center and delivered by Ozon’s own couriers. So far, 6,000 SKUs from the fresh grocery, household & petcare and health & beauty categories are available for rapid fulfillment, with plans to expand the delivery assortment to 15,000 SKUs by year-end.
Grocery home delivery in Russia, which used to lag other European markets, is now quickly embracing rapid fulfillment. Market leader X5 Retail Group is piloting express delivery service within a 3 km radius of participating stores, while leading multi-regional delivery intermediaries iGooods and Instamart offer 2-hour delivery, and smaller local intermediaries Samokat and Yandex.Lavka (an arm of tech company Yandex) deliver grocery in as little as 15 minutes, although within a limited assortment range.
Delivery speed has become a key battleground in the global online grocery market, including emerging and developing markets. To meet the requirements of accelerated fulfillment, CPGs must review their own inventory planning and distribution capabilities in anticipation of tighter time frames and local order fulfillment, in order to make the cut for the limited assortment eligible for faster fulfillment.
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