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

It sounds like this is the sort of service you have in mind.
www.homesupportelmbridge.co.uk/
It used to receive additional funding from the local authority but not any longer as now it's a charity. I'm sure your model would work but not make you much of a living.

Tbh no, if I had that cash to spend I'd just spend it on a supermarket that does delivery and arguably has fresher veg etc

I think you could make a living from it if you offered house sitting/pet sitting/dog walking as well. You'd have to get the price right considering your overheads though - fuel and upkeep of vehicle, insurance etc.

I'm not sure how you'd make any money, OP?

It sounds expensive compared to supermarkets' own deliveries but at the same time I can't see how you'd make much.

At best you're looking at, what, £7 per customer per delivery on average?

So if you want to make at least £10 per hour over a 4hr period you will need to cover 6 customers.

Will you shop for all of them at once and then sort out what's for whom afterwards?

What about your costs?

You need commercial travelling car insurance, not just the usual business use insurance because you'll be carry goods. And there's the wear and tear, fuel, etc.

And then then there's tax and NI, etc.

Will you accept credit cards, etc? If it's cash only you'll put off a lot of people.

I would pay the £10 by the time I've paided for my taxi there an bk its comes to that anyway but atleast this way I don't have to do the actual shop.

@Dixiechickonhols

Would you be better marketing as a personal assistant and charge by hour with DBS. So you could run errands, collect shopping even put it away etc. It might be attractive to people who feel don’t need care but need a little help - reassurance for families that mum/dad has been checked on by a human.

Thank you for taking the time to respond I really like this idea and will definitely explore it further x

Supermarkets make a loss on deliveries. They do it at scale, as efficiently as possible and with excellent IT systems. You can't compete with any of that.

So, £15 a time for a fortnightly shop? (£390 a year). I pay £5 a month for unlimited deliveries of orders >£40 from Ocado (£60 a year). Reliable one-hour slots, including early mornings, my favourites list and regular shop lists all set up, quibble-free refunds, freebies, offers etc. Plus the occasional £1 or £2 for a weekday evening delivery from a cheaper supermarket (£12 a year).

That £318 a year difference in fees is a month's worth of groceries to me.

Aldi and Lidl offer cheaper products than Ocado but:

1. They vary. Half the point is the spontaneous bargain.

2. £318 a year covers a lot of price difference, so would probably be enough to upgrade a regular Aldi shop to an Ocado one anyway.

Wealthier, busy people might pay more, for a more bespoke personal shopping and errand-running service; go to the farmer's market, the dry-cleaner, post office, deli etc. You'd have to build relationships so you knew what they wanted, when and how to substitute.

Aldi shoppers without cars might pay for the occasional shop but, once you've factored in your time, you wouldn't make anything.

There are already services that do this. As it didn't cost me anything other than an hour of my time I signed up. Reality is that I live in an area where incomes don't justify this and there is no demand for it. As part of the national Facebook group for it I can see this isn't a part of the service that's used much even in areas where incomes are higher and people are willing to pay. Furniture assembly, cleaning, removal help, small fixing jobs are much more in demand than the kind of care support that you seem to want to focus on.
You need to do a lot more work to identify there is a real demand - that people will pay for rather than a lovely idea.

I understand what you mean about it being on conjunction with the shop
But you still have to think about your time and if it take 15 min for a click and collect that's £4 per hour.

It's not like you're earning loads from the shop to cover any additional time. Just think you need to properly cost out the buisness. As there's no point starting to make a loss on your time compared to minimum wage.

I'm just trying to help with thinking about how it will actually work.

I have been thinking about this. I volunteered to do my neighbours' shopping at the beginning of the pandemic. During that time one elderly neighbour's poor sight got worse and now she doesn't go out by herself. So now instead of getting her the things on her list, I call for her and take her to the shop. Because of this change she pays me £10 and I spend an hour with her.
She has no one else to shop with her.
There is a real need for this kind of service as people get older. Her children are grateful for it too as they live far away.

I do worry though - what if she were to fall during the shopping trip? Probably proper insurance is required if doing this as a business.

You could offer a morning companion service like this and just listen to all the things they want to tell you and walk up to the Post office / shop with them. Charge enough to cover your real costs of your wage, insurance, accountancy fees for the small business and so on.

There is a business opportunity here for a caring person like yourself

I think people have voted U because we are all computer-savvy and busy here while older people need the contact, have no idea how to get on to a shopping website, have no email, can't transfer money and they dont have phones.

If I’m to be completely honest, and I don’t think a friend would say this to you, if I saw you as a one man band advertising this service I’d assume you were a con artist and I’d report you to the police. I know that doesn’t sound very nice if you’re just genuinely trying to be helpful but that’s what it looks like to me.

How about hiring yourself out by the hour as a 'personal shopping admin assistant?'. So help people set up their own online shopping with supermarkets? You could also arrange to be there to receive the delivery and unpack for them.

That way you take advantage of the supermarkets' efficient, loss-making systems and add the particular sort of extra value that your clients need.

I would do a proper business plan and work out your costs and fees, as well as do some market research. You really need to contact people who HAVE paid for a similar service for that, which might be tricky.

I voted YABU as I don't think it's a feasible business idea currently - I think it's too expensive for the customer and not enough in it for you.

@Dixiechickonhols

Would you be better marketing as a personal assistant and charge by hour with DBS. So you could run errands, collect shopping even put it away etc. It might be attractive to people who feel don’t need care but need a little help - reassurance for families that mum/dad has been checked on by a human.

I agree, this is a much better idea. Personal assistant / home help sort of role. Could be useful for elderly people, new mums, people who've had surgery or long term illness.....

@Findahouse21

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

I don’t get this either. Is there a maximum number of items per shop?

too expensive for the customer but also you won’t make money

^^ This. The supermarkets provide this service at a loss, because it's subsidised by profits on grocery sales.

Deliveroo, Uber Eats etc make losses of millions of pounds every year and it's all propped up by cheap debt from venture capitalists who aim to artificially inflate the on paper value of the company so they can sell the business to someone else for more than they paid for it.

All of the above with massive economies of scale and millions of customers.

Impossible to make much money as an individual unless you manage to find a decent number of very local, probably fairly affluent clients who value personal service of you running errands for them.

@TheRebelle

If I’m to be completely honest, and I don’t think a friend would say this to you, if I saw you as a one man band advertising this service I’d assume you were a con artist and I’d report you to the police. I know that doesn’t sound very nice if you’re just genuinely trying to be helpful but that’s what it looks like to me.

Not really sure how I come across as a con artist as I wasn't planning on taking payment until the shopping was delivered. My friends know me and understand that the angle I am coming from is not purely based on financial gain

Absolutely will look into this. I am so glad I posted now it has certainly given me a lot more perspective

@lottiegarbanzo

How about hiring yourself out by the hour as a 'personal shopping admin assistant?'. So help people set up their own online shopping with supermarkets? You could also arrange to be there to receive the delivery and unpack for them.

That way you take advantage of the supermarkets' efficient, loss-making systems and add the particular sort of extra value that your clients need.

Another great idea thank you for taking the time to respond x

Your friends are not your customers. You'd be marketing your services to strangers.

Do you have any idea how many 'helpful' trades and personal service people try to inveigle their way into the confidence of the vulnerable elderly population?

If you cannot look at this as a business, from the outside, you are in no position to offer services to the public.

Because I’d assume that you’d do one or two deliveries ok then maybe there would be a sob story about how you need a loan, or perhaps you’d charge the full price but one or two expensive items would be missing and then three or four or perhaps you’d be offering to go to the bank for the old person and withdrawing a little bit extra.

You’ve got to look at it from the point of view of a stranger, yes your friends all know you’re honest and kind but strangers don’t, I’d be really concerned if one of my grandparents was paying for a service like this.

I think this is where DBS might be important for this type of business OP.

A bit pricey I think.

Could you not offer your services as a driver? For appointments.

There is one particular person that does it here and she's done it for years and made a fair bit of money but that would be after years of trust etc probably.

Anyway, back to the 'personal assistant' idea. A brilliant thing about it is that you can have an initial meeting with the person, to talk through their needs and set them up with an online order with their preferred supermarket. Then you can run it remotely.

You set up the payment to the supermarket to come from their account but you share their login and password. Then you can run it from home, with the occasional phone call or meeting with them.

A lot of otherwise competent people are wary of and inexperienced in online shopping and using other online services. There's a huge potential market there.