The last 4+ years of my life were spent in the UK and the US, both countries with an internet penetration rate of around 90% (90% for the UK and 87% for the US, according to Internet World Stats, Nielsen, data for 2014, Source here). In March this year, we moved to Romania, our home country, and more exactly, to Cluj.
I was aware of the existence of culture shocks and the fact that these happen even when people return to their home countries, being called reverse culture shock, I definitely wasn’t aware of the way it would feel. I felt stranded and lost in my own home for some months, as if you’d return to your childhood house and started playing with your childhood dolls, just they’s feel strange and awfully small. Cluj is the same town, but it changed a lot during the past years; it had, somehow, reached its teenage years, and we fell right in the middle of it.
Anyhow, one of the things I am missing the most about my life before March is online grocery shopping. Please mind my words: online grocery shopping. This is one of the technological traits mostly appreciated by mums, both in the US and in the UK, because it saves an awful amount of time and it increases the degree of comfort – one doesn’t even need to change those pj’s and can have anything needed delivered at one’s footstep. In London, I used Tesco online delivery; even now, I get weekly emails from them, reminding me about their best offers – sweet, isn’t it? Oh well, this doesn’t happen in Cluj. Or, better said, didn’t happen in Cluj – because, God help me, it kinda did this weekend – hurray!
Let me explain myself – hope I didn’t lose all of you on the way. Romania has an internet penetration rate, according to the source cited at the beginning of the article, of around 51%. Ok, this is the country average, and I presume the figures in cities are somehow higher, but I haven’t found anything to confirm my gut feeling here. Also, it seems most of the products bought over the internet are IT&C, so… no diapers.
The local supermarkets are way behind in their e-commerce quest. There is an online marketplace, called eMag, where one can buy a lot of good and useful products, but no groceries, at least, not if you’re not based in Bucharest. We once bought oil, sugar, and related, but no fresh produce, since eMag has a partnership with Mega Image, owned by Ahold Delhaize.
But all changed on Saturday, when we found out about DeliverMe. These guys did what we had in mind for the past 6 months and brought some tears in the eyes of a busy mum, aka myself :). They deliver supermarket orders to your door, in Cluj! It’s convenient, timely (the order was delivered in around 2 hours after it was placed, and one can choose the time of delivery. They were punctual). The downside is, they don’t offer a lot of supermarkets to choose from and charge you more if you want food from a supermarket which is not in your proximity. We didn’t get a choice, so they delivered from Carrefour, but hey, Carrefour is a good place to shop. The first order is free of charge, so we just needed to pay for our grocery, no extra fee. Even so, the fee would be at around 20 lei – we don’t drive, so that would cover our cost with getting a cab there and carrying the grocery bags ourselves.
It was our first try and I got excited – will let you know how everything goes in the future. These guys are new on the market, their startup being one of the startups developed in Innovation Labs 2017, so good for you, guys. There is a lot to learn for them, but the site looks neat, the delivery went smooth, at least from the customer’s perspective, so it’s a good start. We recommended them to add Lidl on their list of supermarkets, so let’s see how they go about that. From what I have read about them (not much to be found online still, one of the founders is still a student), what they offer now is a beta version of the service and they see themselves as an Uber for grocery delivery. Oh well – let’s see. They have a new customer, and a good review on Facebook; last time I checked, they had only 54 reviews there, so please try them, use them and rate them!
So long for now, my friends, and…thanks for all the fish!