Online delivery in Greece is a case of three

How a pandemic alternative became an everyday necessity

After the pandemic, the consumer has returned to a normal life, online delivery applications are now a useful tool for everyday life. The online delivery brands Efood, Wolt, and Box are leading the way in a market that has indulged in an unprecedented rally: last year it grew by 65.7% compared to 2021, and compared to 2018 the figure exceeded 729%.

Both the pandemic and the spread of digital technologies and e-commerce in the domestic market acted as accelerators for online delivery, which took its first tentative steps a few years ago. A study by research agency Stochasis showed that the Greek market for Online Direct Delivery Services grew from €50 million in 2018 to €364.7 million in 2022, with Greek consumers turning to the online channel to purchase specific products.

The first category concerns sports equipment, which was purchased at a rate of around 71%. Online food delivery came in second place with a 45% share, while the third category acquired by online buyers in Greece is cosmetics and beauty products, at 32%. The 65.7% year-on-year growth in 2021 for the sector was driven by both the continued growth of online food delivery and the growth of grocery delivery and expansion into dark stores.

The dominance of efood

efood's performance in 2022 was characterized by an increase in partner stores and orders, as well as the further development of the efood market, attesting to the change in shopping behavior in the Greek territory. The startup, which was created by Paminos and Konstantinos Kyrkinis and has been part of the Delivery Hero group since 2015, aspires to continue its innovative course this year.

The Delivery Hero group, which owns efood, completed in July 2022 the acquisition of ALFA DIANOMES AE, INKAT AE, DELIVERY.GR IKE and E-TABLE IKE of the Mouchalis Group. With this acquisition, Delivery Hero and efood expand their activities in the retail and wholesale sector in Greece, while also expanding the portfolio of services and solutions offered to their customers. ALFA DIANOMES and INKAT SA have many years of activity in the Greek market, with an extensive network of owned and partner stores (kiosks, mini markets, convenience stores). Since 2020, efood had already launched its cooperation with INKAT for the distribution of retail products through the efood market service.

The deal, which was completed last year, is of strategic importance for Delivery Hero as it will allow efood to quickly upgrade its quick commerce strategy in Greece to become the leading brand for quick grocery shopping both online and offline.

Indeed, with this move, efood gains two main important advantages, a logistics arm and a large network of stores and points. This not only met the need for dark stores close to customers but also added many efood-owned retail outlets that will be part of the online order fulfillment while being customer service points. This means that a technology platform becomes a retailer with all that comes with that status.

According to Stochasis, efood cooperates with 21,000 stores in 100 cities in Greece and has more than 2 million users. In 2021, the company had revenues of EUR 112.8 million and the average growth rate in 2019-2021 was 57.7%.

The Finnish Wolt

In 2019, when it made its official debut in Greece, Wolt's turnover was growing at a rate of 200% per year and it had managed to work with 3,500 restaurants, and 10,000 distributors and had over 1.5 million users ordering either through its website or its AppStore and Google Play apps. In Greece, which was its 14th country of operation, Wolt tried to gauge the intentions of the capital's consumer audience by starting distribution in specific areas north of Attica.

Wolt began to grow rapidly, adding one new service area after another throughout Greece. In 2022, the company owned by Finns Miki Kuusi, Elias Aalto, Mika Matikainen, Oskari Pétas, Lauri Andler, and Juhani Mykkänen was acquired by Chinese-American billionaire entrepreneur Tony Xu's DoorDash for $7 billion.

Four years after its first distribution in the north of Attica, Wolt is now available in 10 cities, Athens, Thessaloniki, Patras, Heraklion, Chania, Rethymno, Larissa, Volos, Agrinio and Kozani, having expanded the variety of businesses with which it cooperates, such as supermarket AB Vassilopoulos and play store Moustakas, while providing small retail services for individual stores and chains (Cellier, Intersport, Fournoi Veneti, Lego).

The BOX by Cosmote

Cosmote's online food ordering service was launched in December 2019, replacing giaola.gr, which had been "running" BOX until then, thus making its entry into a market estimated at around €500 million. At that time Skroutz Food was only a few months old, Wolt's presence was completing one year of operation in the Greek market, while Delivery Hero's efood was in a dominant position.

The emerging and huge market evolved further in 2015, as Delivery Hero acquired efood, and since then it started to grow, acquiring different characteristics from the period it started. The pandemic of course played a catalytic role. In fact, since the period of the second lockdown, BOX has managed to double orders through its website and app, while its services have reached 6,500 stores in 48 cities across Greece.

In November 2020, Skroutz Food moved to Cosmote's BOX platform and with it some of its 40,000-50,000 active customers. But the big change took place in 2020 with the pandemic and the need to transport food from supermarkets to consumers' homes. In this context and as a "response" to efood's collaboration with the biggest retailer in the supermarket sector Sklavenitis, Cosmote's online delivery platform entered into a partnership with Masoutis and Kritikos supermarkets. Today it has cooperation with over 10,000 stores in 64 cities.

The three online delivery brands are constantly investing in their development. efood in the expansion of the network of partner stores, the addition of new store categories, the significant increase in the dynamics of the efood market, the increase in turnover and profitability, as well as the further expansion of the delivered by efood service. Wolt recently announced its cooperation with the online supermarket e-fresh.gr for the consumers of Attica, who will be able through Wolt's platform to order and receive the products they want directly, conveniently, and reliably. While Box's platform with its own fleet is constantly upgrading the customer experience and is constantly enriched with new categories such as "Fine Ordering". The delivery of supermarket products, as well as the delivery of dark store products, is expected to drive further growth in this market of 60% to 66% in the next two years, reaching €900 million by 2024.