Food Online?! – Corner Shops are blossoming

In times of the corona pandemic, solidarity is more important than ever. With the temporary closure of non-essential businesses, regional (retail)traders are facing major challenges. The establishment or expansion of online solutions is an obvious solution. Regional online marketplaces like hallo altmark support retailers in a fast an uncomplicated way – and thus bring business owners and customers together even in difficult times.

In an extension of the online platform and in addition to regional traders, hallo altmark would like to present regionally produced products, especially regionally produced food, online. With this step, the wishes of customers and regional producers will be met equally.

In course of the project ORIENT and hallo altmark, the attitude of regional customers (located in the district of Stendal and the Altmark district of Salzwedel) towards the online purchase of regionally produced food was examined. For this purpose the project team conducted a user survey in the Altmark. About 200 respondents took part in the survey. The age structure of the participants gives an idea of the target group of such regional online marketplace: 65% of the interviewed persons are younger than 35 years and thus take up a large part of Generation Y, the so-called ‘digital generation’.

34% of the survey participants have already gained experience in buying food online – mainly durable food (pasta, sweets, etc.) and beverages were purchased online. In the group of those who have not yet gained any experience in buying food online, almost 62% of the respondents can imagine buying food online.

The advantages of buying food on the internet were predominantly mentioned as: Not being tied to the opening hours of supermarkets or farm shops (60%), saving time (45%), carrying less (44%) and being able to order from anywhere (42%). As disadvantages of buying food online were mainly mentioned: The food cannot be viewed/checked on spot (78%), a time commitment to delivery (67%) and potential shipping costs (62%).

The question about the intention to buy regionally produced food on the internet was answered in the affirmative by 79% of those questioned. In this group, durable foods (80%), fruit and vegetables (69%) and beverages (68%) would be preferred when making a possible online purchase. The market for a regional online shopping channel for food is accordingly available.

Hallo altmark would like to use these survey results to expand the extensions of the regional online market place close to the target group and to make the online platform even more market-friendly. Stay tuned for further development!