New grocery delivery app empowers individuals

Downers Grove IL

28 November, 2020

9:01 AM

Description

The holidays are here, which means more crowds at the grocery store. If you want to skip the lines, you may want to hire your own personal shopper. I recently learned about Dumpling, a newer grocery shopping and delivery app. Unlike Instacart, which works with independent contractors, Dumpling is a platform for individuals to start their very own grocery shopping and delivery businesses. Personal shoppers set their own schedules and pricing, and keep 100% of their tips, earning on average three times more than Instacart workers (about $33 per order- and that's pre COVID, so even more now!). Dumpling provides the technology and app needed for them to get their orders, as well as funding, business coaching and more. For a consumer, it's really easy to use. Just download the Dumpling app, put in your zip code, and choose the shopper you want based on reviews, pricing, etc. If you like your shopper, then you can use them repeatedly (Instacart does not provide this option). Another benefit: Shoppers can go to any store for you – so if you want to get your meat from a local butcher shop or produce from a farmer's market, your shopper will be able to do so. Additionally, consumers are charged in-store prices. That's not the norm with the other larger apps that are known to crank up online prices. Matthew Telles, The Grocery Guy from Park Ridge, IL talks about his experience as a shopper for Dumpling: 1.Why did you decide to use the Dumpling platform? Tell me a little about yourself I had been utilizing Instacart to get by after a previous work injury and fell in love with the process of grocery shopping. But the honeymoon period was short, and they soon pulled the rug from underneath shoppers via reduced earnings and rampant tip theft. About two years ago, I signed up to be a personal shopper on the Dumpling platform. I truly believe this idea works well, without exploiting the most vulnerable. 2. Where do you deliver? Right now, many of our clients live around the North Shore, the NW Suburbs, and parts of Downtown. Wilmette, Skokie, and Wrigleyville are home to many of our longtime clients. 3. How many repeat clients do you have and how did you get that? The Grocery Guy is sitting at 53 repeat clients of varying degrees. Some are regular, weekly orders. While others utilize our services for special occasions every once in a while. Pretty much all of our current clients have come from word of mouth, or by utilizing the search function within the Dumpling app. Almost all of them were tired of having terrible experiences with larger apps. Since I am able to build my own schedule, branding, support, and pricing, it's just a much more comfortable and stress free process for clients to know they can count on me to be there for them whenever they need. 4. How are you handling contactless deliveries? We were lucky enough to be relatively prepared for a pandemic situation. My partner and I have been building a mobile office / studio apartment in our RAM Promaster cargo van since April 2019. We have onboard refrigeration and a full sink for hand washing powered by solar batteries. And since we are able to reduce our spending by fully adopting the Tiny Home On Wheels lifestyle, we are able to make sure we have all the necessary PPE and sanitation process to deliver safely. For single family homes, it's as simple as leaving the groceries at the front door (or another designated location) and texting a picture with a message that we have arrived. Apartment complexes are a bit trickier, especially with immunocompromised who cannot come down to receive. In a perfect world, strangers should not be entering spaces that are not their own. But in these tricky times, we have to rise to the occasion and make sure we are sanitizing everything once the delivery is complete. 5. I heard you can keep in touch with the customer on the trip. Can you explain the process? It's actually very simple. Every shopper is free to have their own communication style for their business. Whether that be texting, phone calls, emails, etc. The sky really is the limit. I'm most comfortable communicating with my customers via text, that way I can utilize speech to text for multitasking. No waiting in a queue. No robots. Just person to person communication. The ratings and reviews on the app are excellent, so it is definitely worth checking Dumpling out.