Online grocery platforms are witnessing rapid growth in the eCommerce industry. With the widespread grocery trends, the market value of the eCommerce grocery industry has doubled. There is no doubt in the fact that people nowadays feel much ease in purchasing groceries online. The main objective of online grocery stores is to deliver the best quality products directly to their customer’s doorsteps at competitive prices. Great website features are crucial in running an online grocery platform. And in a world full of advancements, supermarkets must provide their customers with a seamless shopping experience. And for that, an online grocery platform should have a wide variety of features to offer products to customers; the platform must make the products easily accessible. In a nutshell, one should make a website as simple as a physical store. Undoubtedly, the rapid growth of online grocery has created a lot of interest in the grocery eCommerce market. This blog post aims to help entrepreneurs better understand how an online grocery marketplace works, the top software to build a grocery marketplace, and the critical features of a successful online grocery marketplace. Top Market Players in The Grocery Industry According to the Research and Market reports, the global online grocery market rate is expected to reach USD 2,1583.53 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 25.3% from 2022 to 2030.  With the growth of the online grocery industry, the preferences of customers are also changing. Many online stores offer services like placing and collecting orders on the same day, which helps in the market's rapid growth. Business Founded Founder Investors Funding Peapod 1989 Young Lee Ahold $73M Instacart 2012 Apoorv MehtaMax MullenBrandon Leonardo Sequoia CapitalCoatue ManagementKhosla Ventures $2.7B Shipt 2014 Bill Smith GreycroftHarbert Venture Partners $65.2B FreshDirect 2002 David MclnerneyJason Ackerman David MclnerneyJason Ackerman $280M Farmigo 2009 Benzi RonenYossi Pik BenchmarkSherbrook Capital $26M Types of Grocery eCommerce Software Grocery software is a fast and reliable turn-key solution equipped with features to efficiently and easily launch an online supermarket. These are convenient and less expensive because they come up with purpose-built features and pre-integrated APIs. This software doesn’t require any coding from your side. There are two types of eCommerce grocery platforms for online merchants to choose from which are: Hosted Grocery eCommerce software Self-hosted Grocery eCommerce software Hosted Grocery eCommerce Software They offer ready-made eCommerce Software for creating a store for your business. It runs on a server that the solution providers fully manage. This means you can easily create an online store without worrying about hosting/storing files/data on the cloud and all technical details. Examples: Mycloud Growcer, Mercatus, Unata, Shophero Self-Hosted Grocery eCommerce Software These platforms allow full access to source code to build a full-fledged online grocery marketplace for businesses. The self-hosted grocery eCommerce solution is one where the business owners are responsible for the hosting, which will give them full freedom to implement their online grocery marketplace according to their business needs. Examples: Growcer, ZielCommerce, Yelo Top 5 Grocery Software to Manage Marketplace Effectively As we have already elaborated that grocery software is essential for a successful marketplace. So, here we have put together a list of the top 5 grocery software that will help supermarkets to enhance their business growth in the eCommerce industry. 1. Growcer Growcer is a self-hosted, readymade grocery software that is fully equipped with a set of multiple features and functionalities which help in not only the start-up of an online grocery business but also other businesses like online pharmacy delivery, liquor and wine delivery business, food delivery, supplement delivery, online pet food delivery, and many more. Its inbuilt inventory module provides real-time inventory tracking and also helps with order management, pickup management, tax management, and much more in one place. Its latest version, with enhanced features and functionalities, helps you to launch your hyperlocal marketplace with minimum effort. In addition, Growcer also offers you a lifetime license for experiencing complete ownership through a one-time payment process. Key Highlights: Define Radius Offers limitless scalability Auto-order completion BOPIS (Buy online, and pick up in-store) 2. ZielCommerce Zielcommerce comes with a one-time payment option and customizable software that helps you build an online grocery delivery website and app. Zielcommerce supports both single-vendor as well as multi-vendor online grocery businesses. It reaches customers globally with its multi-currency and multilingual options. Zeilcommerce is a great website builder for online grocery marketplace, providing complete solutions to online grocery retailers and engaging consumers through customized shopping. Key Highlights: Customization One time cost End-to-end support Fully ensure 3. Mercatus Mercatus is a feature-rich eCommerce software that empowers online supermarkets to run successfully. Its configurable front end allows sellers to build their online grocery marketplace, offering an in-store experience with multiple product options. This flexibility of this software allows you to monitor stock as there is a convenient dashboard that shows all the inventory reports. Its user-oriented UI supports better customer engagement, and the software also enables good revenue through its entire management tools. Key Highlights: Offers order management Multipayment channels Smooth integration with CRM, loyalty program, and many more Inventory management 4. ShopHero ShopHero is a popular platform which makes it easy to launch an eCommerce grocery marketplace. Its retail success platform consists of three main modules – eCommerce, POS (point of sale), and buyer engagement. Their logistics technologies also offer independent grocers cost-effective home delivery services without a considerable investment in technology or delivery infrastructure. In addition, it is a platform that offers an automated marketing system, reports & analytics, and much more. Key Highlights: Inventory management Loyalty Program Intuitive UI/UX Convenient payment experience 5. Yelo Yelo is a multi-vendor marketplace SAAS software that allows you to create a website and mobile apps to sell groceries online. The entrepreneurs are offered a complete tech suite to run and automate their business operations in terms of ordering, delivering, and marketing. Furthermore, Yelo also offers more than 50 integrations in payment, accounting, and marketing. Apart from delivering groceries to doorsteps now, they also provide facilities for drone delivery. Key Highlights: Promotion management SEO management Return management Provide a facility for drone delivery Essential features for Online Grocery Business With the help of the above-mentioned grocery software, you can build a fully loaded website with a set of unique features that will make your marketplace website easy to use and mobile-friendly. Here, we have compiled a list of some features that you must include in your online grocery marketplace to attract vendors and buyers. Product Catalog System Grocery eCommerce marketplace must have this feature to create and manage lists of products in terms of import/export, categorizing them, inventories, and much more, easily. Order Management Because of this feature, vendors can easily manage multiple order requests at once. This feature gives them full details about total delivered orders, pending orders, cancelled orders, order history, and much more. Inventory management An online grocery marketplace integrated with this feature helps to provide real-time location and regulate track inventory status so that customers can collect all details regarding stock availability. Radius Calculation An online grocery marketplace must provide this system which helps customers get all the details of the nearest store just by typing the address. It is also preferable for delivery partners as they will get a specific radius within which they can do deliveries Multiple Payment Options Make the purchasing process as simple as possible for the customers by including a variety of online payment options in the shopping cart. The availability of multiple payment options like COD, card payments, eWallets, and other payment methods on your marketplace, gives your customers more reasons to continue buying from you. Scheduled Deliveries An online grocery marketplace must use this feature to provide schedule-based deliveries. This feature helps customers to get a clear idea of the delivery schedule by knowing the availability of vendors and delivery partners. Pick-at-Store Options These services are becoming very popular nowadays in an online grocery marketplace. Integrating this feature in an online grocery marketplace allows buyers a convenient self-pick-up facility. This enables customers to shop online at their convenience by visiting stores whenever they want immediate delivery or a combination of both. Conclusion Customers have started utilizing online grocery platforms, and with the rapid growth in the eCommerce grocery industry, starting an online grocery platform can be a profitable business option. Furthermore, to experience the success of your online grocery business, we have created a list of top grocery software that can help you make the most of your online grocery business by choosing the best software for your marketplace based on your business needs. So, try to gather as much information as possible by considering everything you’ve read above in this article.

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