SINGAPORE – From delivering next-hour groceries to helping supermarket retailers go digital, HappyFresh has achieved several significant milestones that have transformed the online grocery retail landscape in Asia. The company aims to keep the next 10 years filled with as much drive, innovation and inspiration as the first year.
In 2015, HappyFresh began its operations in Indonesia and Malaysia with a committed mission — to provide a simple and smart online grocery shopping solution. This allows time-strapped customers living in traffic-congested megacities in Asia to have more time with families and loved ones instead of pushing their way through a crowded supermarket after a long day at work. With a team of less than 20 people, the company subsequently achieved many breakthroughs in the online grocery industry.
“It has been an exciting and whirlwind ride for us,” said CEO and Co-founder of HappyFresh, Markus Bihler. “What started out as a small group of close friends and business partners has turned into a regional community, that is building a better world together. We are very fortunate to have grown into our current size in such a short time while continuously improving our product offering, service proposition and customer experience,”
“Every day we are a step closer to changing the way people do grocery shopping and giving more people the opportunity to access the best global, regional, and local supermarket partners on a simple mobile application and in just a few clicks. More importantly, we are helping our customers whom we call ‘HappyFreshers’ to spend more time with their loved ones without having to worry about grocery shopping.”
HappyFresh: Serve Better, Play Smarter and Grow Bigger
From the start, HappyFresh understood that to be successful meant the company needed to serve better, play smarter, and grow bigger. Within 12 months, HappyFresh invested heavily in a high performing logistics network consisting of in-house trained personal shoppers and delivery drivers. By forming strong local teams that understand the local cultures and nuances in each market, HappyFresh is also able to ensure that its offerings appeal to local conditions and requirements and deliveries can be made in the next hour.
The success of the company has attracted many local talents, increasing the number of employees and, subsequently, created many job opportunities in the region. Today, with the team now expanded to almost 1,000 employees, HappyFresh’s headquarters is located in the commercial center of Jakarta, serving more than 300,000 customers, and with a store network of over 1,000 stores across seven cities in Asia.
The option of next-hour delivery is part of HappyFresh’s on-going commitment to customer satisfaction, alongside other customer-centric services such as supermarket promotions, recommendation lists, and “beyond one-click repurchases” — which allows customers to re-order a previous shopping basket, because repeat orders are common.
In an effort to bring its customers in Asia the best grocery shopping solution, HappyFresh has partnered with top supermarket retailers, as well as popular independent stores such as Grand Lucky, Ranch Market, Farmers Market, Lotte Mart & Super Indo (Indonesia), Jason’s Food Hall and Village Grocer (Malaysia), Big C, Gourmet Market, Home Fresh Market (Thailand), Simple Mart, Lafe, and Cotton Land (Taiwan), allowing customers to shop for a wide range of different grocery products at their fingertips. To date, there are more than 122,000 products available in the app, compressing 2000 square meters store floor to as little as a 4-inch smartphone screen.
“The partnership between Jason’s Food Hall and HappyFresh brings about a strategic opportunity for us to increase visibility and coverage not only by catering to our current customers but also reaching out to the rising number of consumers who use digital platform as their primary means of purchasing goods and services,” commented Ernest Potgieter, Operations Director of GCH Retail (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd.
“As HappyFresh celebrates its one-year anniversary today, we will continue to dream big and explore new opportunities and possibilities for the future to build a sustainable marketplace friendly environment in the region,” Mr Bihler said.
HappyFresh ended 2015 with a bang when it completed a $12m Series A funding led by Vertex Venture (Vertex), the venture arm of Temasek Holdings, and Sinar Mas Digital Ventures (SMDV), the venture arm of Sinar Mas Group of Indonesia, making it one of the biggest Series-A fundings in Asia last year.
