AIBU Would You Pay For This?

[lottieproc1]

Hello everyone I'm looking for your opinion I am about to start a business offering a personal shopping service for people within my 8 mile area for supermarkets that don't offer home delivery so Aldi for instance. I plan to charge £10 for a weekly, £15 for a Fortnightly & £20 for a monthly. I would also run errands (post office, Click & collect etc) for £1 each when booked with the shop. I plan to offer discounts, refer a friend get a free delivery, share the cost with a neighbor
I have discussed this with friends & family, some think it's a really good idea but a few have said they think I'm charging too much & wouldn't pay for it.
What are your thoughts?? TIA

When you say £20 for a monthly does this mean £20 for one monthly shop or £20 for one shop per week to last a month. If itvs the first I'd say way too high, the second I think is a bargain

So it’s £10 on top of the cost of my weekly shop to have you deliver it to me?
If I needed to shop at Aldi I probably wouldn’t have a spare £10 to pay you.

For reference I pay £7.99 a month to Tesco for unlimited deliveries so no I wouldn’t pay you £10 a week I’m afraid

Would you even make any money at those prices? Have you done a full breakdown of costs? What would you be making per hour after expenses?

Aldi is on Deliveroo where I live (not a city) and getting rolled out in lots more places quickly so you might find yourself with no business very suddenly.

I don't think you'd make enough money off running errands to make it worth your while.

No, I’d just shop at Tesco or Sainsbury’s that do offer delivery. I’d regard you as expensive and potentially as one individual much less reliable (if you got sick, had to self isolate etc).

Most people shop at Aldi or Lidl because it's cheaper rather their actual products, even if they prefer some of their own brand.

A monthly shop from Tesco or Asda will cost them £5 at the absolute most. Why would they prefer to pay £15 to £20 more to get Aldi brand instead?

Sorry, forgot to answer your question!
I'm disabled and housebound. I would use this service if I had no other way to get what I needed, yes.

Deliveroo will do an Aldi shop. There is online shopping. Couriors ( even Royal Mail) will pick up parcels from the door and pharmacies will often deliver I think you'd find you're entering a saturated marketplace. Sorry

No I wouldn’t pay, I’d rather just pay for a proper supermarket delivery. The price saving of Lidl/Aldi would be lost by paying for your service. I pay £5 a month for unlimited Asda deliveries. And with a I can get refunds online for unwanted subs, change my order easily, pay securely online etc, it’s far more convenient than a one person service. So I think you would be overcharging and over complicating it.

How would someone give you their order? What would you do if they don’t specify the particular type/brand they want? What if you choose the wrong one? What if something isn’t in stock when you get there?

Yes I would use it. Especially for errands like Post Office, prescriptions, collect dog food, pick up magazines, drop off to courier points etc. Have you thought about a dog taxi service too?

Also, would it not cost more than a pound to drive to a post office, collect something and drop it off? How much would you even make after fuel costs? What is your time worth?

You may get some jobs from elderly people who aren’t online to do online orders but otherwise I cannot see how people would want to pay for that service, nor how you’d actually make NMW

Doing a weekly shop, for instance, would take you at least an hour or two between collecting the order, driving to and doing the shop and then delivering it, and petrol/mileage costs. £10 wouldn’t even cover your basic costs.

Sorry, I think it’s a nice idea but not going to be sustainable at all

I think it's too expensive for the customer, but not enough for you to earn even minimum wage. There are other ways people can get shopping.

I guess it's aimed at the most vulnerable people who are unable to do these things themselves, but I'd be very concerned if I heard of a vulnerable person I knew giving money to an unregulated, unknown person in this way.

@MadeOfStarStuff

No I wouldn’t pay, I’d rather just pay for a proper supermarket delivery. The price saving of Lidl/Aldi would be lost by paying for your service. I pay £5 a month for unlimited Asda deliveries. And with a I can get refunds online for unwanted subs, change my order easily, pay securely online etc, it’s far more convenient than a one person service. So I think you would be overcharging and over complicating it.

How would someone give you their order? What would you do if they don’t specify the particular type/brand they want? What if you choose the wrong one? What if something isn’t in stock when you get there?

This covers most of what I was going to say very succinctly.

It's open to a huge number of problems even before you get to the fact the price point is way too high.

It honestly doesn't sound like you've sat and thought it through. If you had surely you would have realised how unworkable it would be in reality.

Way too expensive. And do you have any limits on how much they have to spend?
E.g. they have to do a £20 minimum shop?.

With the monthly shop. Would you go daily to the shops for me.

E.g. one bread. The next milk. The next day strawberries. Or is it limited to one shop a week or something.

Or would you go to two or three different supermarkets if I wanted a specific item from aldi. Then one from asda and a different from Morrisons all on the same day?

I don’t think I would, just because I’m not so wedded to one supermarket that I would pay you to go to it rather than just choosing a shop which offers home delivery. £10 is a lot to pay when Sainsbury’s / Tesco’s etc deliver for as little as £1.

Also, I know when I get a Tesco order for instance that it’s all properly refrigerated in transit, and I would worry it wouldn’t be if it was someone operating from a normal non-refrigerated vehicle.

I might find the errands more useful, but not sure you would make enough money from that alone.

A better way would be hours of your time + mileage. Your packages just don't make financial sense.

It is a lot for people who can easily do it themselves. But for those who would use the service because of mobility, transport or convenice would find it very reasonable.

@BeepBoopBop

Yes I would use it. Especially for errands like Post Office, prescriptions, collect dog food, pick up magazines, drop off to courier points etc. Have you thought about a dog taxi service too?

Deliveroo do Aldi in most areas now plus cheaper delivery options.

I do however think 'errand run' is a great idea for a business (as above). It might include you picking up some shopping items and I'd reevaluate your costing (depending on how many errands), perhaps time estimate per client-

No sorry, I'd use a supermarket that used delivery or deliveroo. Or ask someone I knew to pick something up. I wouldn't want my nan using a service like this either as there's nothing stopping you conning her.

(Not saying you would, just it would be hard to reassure people you wouldnt)

What made you think of this idea OP? Do you know of lots of people in your area who can't get shopping delivered or supermarkets that won't deliver?

The only supermarkets I can think of that don't offer their own delivery service that would be cheaper than you are Aldi and Liddle. But as a pp has said, most people who shop there do it to save cash so I'm not sure there will be many willing to pay you to deliver.

I also have doubts that you will make much money on this. Have you considered all your costs and how much time you will spend shopping and delivering? Eg. Do you plan to do each customer's shop separately and deliver immediately? If not, can customers choose when you deliver and does this mean you need a way to store frozen/chilled shopping safely until it's delivered? You'll also need to change your car insurance to include use for this business (or get a van and insure that etc). I'm particularly unsure about the 'extras' that you say you'll charge £1 for. Will this even cover petrol? What about parking etc? How many extras can I include? Eg. My MIL would love a service like this but would expect that for £10 you would do her weekly Aldi shop but then add on £1 each for popping to several small shops (all in different areas) for 'a few bits'. She'd expect to pay £15 but you'd end up driving round town all morning collecting her stuff. She would then almost certainly quibble if any of the shopping got squashed/wasn't chilled etc in transit.

It might be a good business idea but I think you

I think this is a non-starter.
The prices are far too low for you to make money doing this. You have to factor in paying tax and national insurance contributions depending on how much you earn over the year. So the 10 pounds for one shop is not how much you take home. You then have to pay for petrol for the car and for wear and tear on the vehicle due to the increased usage.
Depending on how large the order is, you could be taking up to an hour to drive to Aldi, shop and then drive back to the customer's home.

Your suggestion of 20 pound monthly, presumably for 4 shops, means you'd be getting 5 pounds gross for each shop which would end up being about 2.50 by the time you've factored in other costs.

As for the add-on errands - that's just another loss-maker. It will cost you more in petrol than you will get. People who really can't make it to the post office etc will probably already have support systems in place - family members, carers etc.

Summary: the prices are too high for the customer and too low for you.
You won't make any money doing this. Back to the drawing board.

I wouldn't pay for supermarket delivery, but I would for errands - I don't see how you'd make any money just from errands though.

More expensive supermarkets already offer cheap delivery. The only reason to shop at Aldi and Lidl is because they are cheaper, so paying your prices for delivery negates that saving. So I can't see the point to be honest.