- Coles has teamed up with outsourcing platform AirTasker for grocery delivery
- The partnership will allow shoppers for more flexible and customised deliveries
- The move is a bid to scare off U.S.-based e-commerce giant Amazon
Coles has teamed up with online start-up AirTasker to provide a new home delivery service in a bid to scare off competition from Amazon.
The Australian supermarket giant will launch a 12-month trial of the delivery service for groceries using the outsourcing platform.
The move is an effort to compete with U.S.-based e-commerce giant Amazon, which is gearing up to launch its popular delivery service for groceries in Australia.
Amazon already has a chunk of the American grocery market – something Coles likely hopes will not be replicated Down Under.
Coles has teamed up with online start-up AirTasker to provide a new home delivery service
According to Airtasker CEO Tim Fung, the service provided will be much more flexible than anything Amazon offers for its customers.
‘With existing online shopping models, there are restrictions on how they operate because of their fixed infrastructure,’ he told the AFR.
‘Doing deliveries late at night, or on Christmas, wasn’t possible, nor could you substitute an apple for a carrot once you’d placed the order. The way we structure it as a marketplace lets consumers tell us what they want.’
Airtasker allows ordinary people to compete for ‘tasks’ that are posted online, which range from menial jobs like cleaning to more skilled tasks like graphic design.
The Australian supermarket giant will launch a 12-month trial of the delivery service for groceries using the outsourcing platform
‘We’ve spoken to people about the pain points of online shopping delivery generally and I think we can increase the market size eight times,’ Mr Fung said.
The partnership between Coles and Airtasker will mean customers buying products from 64 stores across Sydney will soon be able to have groceries delivered without leaving their home.
‘We know our customers enjoy the convenience of having their groceries delivered by Coles Online – this trial with Airtasker will make shopping even more convenient by allowing customers to deal directly with the person doing their shopping and bringing it to them,’ Coles Online General Manager Karen Donaldson said.
‘Whether it’s picking up a box of nappies at midnight or specifying unripe avocados so you can eat them later in the week, we think customers will love this new level of personalised service.’
The move is an effort to compete with U.S.-based e-commerce giant Amazon