Innovation of the week: Just Eat launches white-label delivery service with the Co-op

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Innovation of the Week is a series highlighting retail initiatives that have caught the eye of our team. Every week, we bring you new ideas and case studies across consumer, technology, sustainability, economy, policy and industry.

What is it?

Rapid delivery platform Just Eat, which boasts the UK’s largest delivery network, has launched its first delivery-as-a-service platform JET Go.

The delivery giant said it would “enable partner brands to receive customer orders through their own channels, while tapping into Just Eat’s technology infrastructure and reliable network of independent couriers to offer on-demand, same-day and scheduled deliveries”.

Just Eat research has found that 80% of customers now want same-day or on-demand delivery options from retailers, while 75% of on-demand shoppers use such services every day when it comes to groceries.

The first retail partner in the UK for JET Go is the convenience store specialist Co-op, which has rolled the service out across hundreds of its stores to “support its strategic focus on convenience and same-day delivery”.

Deliver-as-a-service is already live on Just Eat’s platforms in 15 countries around the world, including Canada, Australia, Bulgaria and Spain, with “more big UK brands set to come online in the coming months”.

Why does it matter?

With consumers increasingly expecting on-demand and same day delivery options from retailers, the ability for brands to tap into an extensive and ready-made delivery infrastructure could be a game changer for smaller brands.

The big barrier to entry for home delivery remains the huge cost of last mile delivery, and having more white label options like JET Go will open up more options for smaller brands.

With that in mind, JET Go will help fulfil deliveries on the Co-op’s newly launched Peckish app.

Peckish is an app “dedicated to supporting independent local grocery retailers in communities across the UK” and is open to “small, often family-owned, independent grocery retailers”.

Strategic implications

Just Eat processes around 500 orders every minute of every day, and services some 18 million customers a year. As a result of dealing with this volume of orders, Just Eat has the built-in logistics and infrastructure to deal with the rigours of on-demand, last-mile delivery.

By making this available to smaller retailers as a white label service, this could in effect help democratise on-demand and rapid delivery, offering these brands the opportunity to tap into that growing customer segment, while also more generally entrenching the behaviour.

“It’ll be a game-changer for smaller high street businesses looking to offer on-demand delivery with full brand control while retaining control of the customer experience,” said Matt Ephgrave, managing director of Just Eat for Business. “We can support our partner brands to respond and scale with confidence”.