Online delivery service takealot.com has launched its first on-demand service offering customers a curated range of products that can be delivered within minutes. 

Unlike Checkers’ Sixty60 and Pick n Pay’s asap! delivery services, Takealot will not be venturing into grocery deliveries. What differentiates TakealotNOW is that it will be dispatching a limited range of goods such as tech, beauty products, toys and other products from a local dark store, and not its distribution centre.

For the moment, TakealotNOW will only be available in Cape Town’s northern suburbs, specifically in Durbanville, Bellville, Brackenfell, Kraaifontein, Kuilsriver and Parow. Once they are satisfied with the proof of concept, more dark stores will be opened in other parts of the Cape Town metropole before being launched in other urban areas.

Deliveries will be conducted only through the Mr D app, within an hour, until 10pm.

Frederik Zietsman, CEO at takealot.com, explained that, globally, consumers are expecting products to be delivered faster, which is a megatrend that cannot be ignored. Takealot has seen a steady increase in sales in certain categories when they offer same-day or next-day delivery or collection options. 

“TakealotNOW will enable us to fulfil customers’ need for products, delivered faster than ever before while offering an unbeatable range across categories not yet available in the on-demand world.”

For the first month, delivery will be free. After that, it is expected to cost around R35. 

It also does not envisage a subscription membership – such as Amazon Prime – in order to qualify for on-demand delivery.

Zietzman said with over 500,000 products on their platform, it’s clear that customers prefer certain categories of goods to be delivered faster than others. 

“We want to be sure that we stock the dark store with the things that the consumer really wants. Our data needs to be very crisp in terms of informing us about what to put into the dark stores because we don’t want to duplicate the central distribution system.”

Takealot plans to roll out as many of these dark stores as possible in major urban centres where there is a concentration of people, so not in rural areas.

They also expect to see some geographic nuance in terms of product preferences: customers in Soweto might have different requirements to those in Durbanville, which will inform stock selection at their dark stores. 

“Once we understand these regional nuances, the on-demand stores will be stocked in line with customer expectations.”

Zietzman said north of 20% of Takealot’s platform orders are already delivered the next day. 

“We have sharpened our pencils on the next-day delivery, so customers are not waiting for items from our depot. It’s just an evolution of that. We’re not trying to compete with grocery deliveries, because our products are unique and differentiated … you cannot find them on-demand anywhere else. 

“Where in South Africa can you get an Apple Macbook on-demand in 30 minutes?” If you’re in Cape Town’s northern suburbs, now you can.

TakealotNOW is available on the Mr D app. Once opened, navigate to the dedicated Shops tab to find the TakealotNOW store. DM