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Nicole Jao · · 6 min readSingapore’s largest grocer is betting big on online groceries
Online grocery shopping has become an ecommerce trend to be reckoned with, especially over the past year. At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, it wasn’t only pure tech players like RedMart and Grab that ramped up their online grocery efforts.
In Singapore, dominant supermarket chain NTUC FairPrice has been investing more into its ecommerce business too. It has even hired a senior ex-Lazada executive to head its online grocery unit.
The supermarket chain boasts that it captured a quarter of the Singapore online grocery market last year.
Photo credit: FairPrice
In this heated race, low-tech supermarkets might have an edge against pure tech rivals, which still struggle with profitability. For example, FairPrice’s omnichannel approach lets it leverage offline stores to improve delivery efficiency.
Going online
FairPrice was among the first supermarket retailers in Singapore to launch an online platform, having done so as far back as the early 2000s. But it was not until recently that it started focusing more on it.
In 2018, FairPrice revamped its online portal, FairPrice On. In the following year, the company began a hiring push that included filling hundreds of tech and digital roles.
Other traditional retailers also jumped on the bandwagon.
Photo credit: 123RF
Singapore-based supermarket chain Sheng Siong launched its online portal in 2014, and other physical grocers like Cold Storage and Giant have also moved into the online space.
But compared to other physical retailers, FairPrice appears to have made more headway online. According to the company, it managed to grow its market share to 25% last year, up from 18% in 2018.
Johnny Wong, CEO of FairPrice’s digital business, tells Tech in Asia that the company lacked a clear digital strategy when he was brought on to lead the unit three years ago. Prior to FairPrice, Wong was the chief product officer and managing director at Lazada, which owns RedMart.
Initially, FairPrice relied solely on a central warehouse for order fulfillment – a business model similar to many of its pure tech competitors. But the cookie-cutter model was highly unprofitable for groceries and did not allow room for innovation, Wong later found out.
Bricks versus clicks
The “fulfillment from store” model
More than a buzzword
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Singapore’s largest brick-and-mortar supermarket FairPrice is set to go up against RedMart and Grab.
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