A package from the future

Today you can order almost everything to your home. True, this does not come cheap. (Photo: Max Novikov )

Imagine: you are comfortably seated in your favorite chair, leafing through a thick catalog and choosing whatever your heart desires - food, washing powders, household items, animal food and much more. You pick up the phone, place an order, and within an hour or two it’s all at your home. Or another situation: you are late at work, all the stores have been closed for a long time, and there is an empty refrigerator at home... You dial a number, place an order, and by the time you arrive, everything has already been delivered.

Agree, it sounds tempting, but it seems like pictures from “not our” life. And yet, ordering goods at home, not going shopping, saving yourself from going to the market, as well as from fiddling around in the kitchen, is quite possible with us.

So far, the delivery market is not rich in offers. Last December, with the support of the Moscow government, the first service offering delivery of groceries and household goods opened in the capital. Today, Service 77 already has more than 6 thousand clients, its own fleet of 100 cars and more than 200 forwarders who are ready to deliver any product selected from the catalog to your home within three hours. Prices are the same as in most stores, delivery is free if the amount of your order exceeds 700 rubles, 35 rubles if the order is made for more than 250 rubles, and 70 if for a smaller amount. “Initially, we focused on the middle class, but later we were surprised to discover that even pensioners became our clients. They put together an order for the drive-thru, and then distribute the products among themselves,” says assistant project manager Irina Saprykina.

“I learned about Service 77 before the New Year from a newspaper advertisement,” says Marina V. “And now I place orders almost every week. I have been looking for a service like this for a long time so that I can live peacefully without leaving my home.

Marina is disabled, so for her, home delivery of goods is a matter of vital necessity. But many of her friends also appreciated the benefits of stay-at-home orders over shopping.

Did you order pizza?
The service of home delivery of food began to be offered to Russian consumers relatively recently - two or three years ago. This business can be roughly divided into two parts: companies for which food delivery is their main business, and restaurants offering this service as an additional one.

“When we opened our restaurant two years ago, we immediately offered customers the service of delivering pizza to their homes,” says Badri Alasania, general director of Pizza on Kutuzovsky. Delivery costs 100 rubles. However, only those who live no more than an hour’s drive from the restaurant can use this service. “This is the optimal time in which we can deliver our product. Therefore, our regular customers are residents of neighboring houses, for whom it is sometimes even faster to come down to our restaurant than to wait for an order,” says Badri Alasania. Due to territorial restrictions, the restaurant has few orders - only 8-10 per day.

But even those companies for which delivery is their main business also serve those homes and offices that are located in close proximity to restaurants. Today, three restaurants with home delivery "Domino's Pizza" are open in Moscow. Free delivery. The reason for such generosity is simple - manufacturers expect to seriously expand and “recoup” profits due to high turnover.

“Actually, I went to Domino’s for the first time and didn’t even know that all this could be ordered by phone,” says Sergei, one of the visitors to the delivery restaurant. “But it’s still unlikely that I can become a regular customer.” It's not even about the price, I just don't really need it.

And yet, according to restaurant owners, the home delivery business in Russia has great prospects. “We are counting on the middle class, which we hope will appear in Russia. Today we really have very few clients. But tomorrow they will definitely appear,” says Viktor Brecher, general director of Dominos Pizza.

Courier services
The courier delivery service probably has the longest experience in this type of service in Russia. This service is provided by more than 50 companies. Among them are well-known foreign giants such as TNT or DHL. The network of DHL branches and agencies serves more than 350 Russian cities and towns, and an individual approach to customer needs and the professionalism of the company’s personnel provide it with a leading position in the Russian market. Experts attribute the emergence of the delivery services market to 1994, although many foreign companies began operating in our country in the late 80s. The diplomatic corps, correspondents of Western newspapers and magazines, employees of Moscow representative offices of Western companies - that was the entire clientele of the Moscow branches of Federal Express and DHL in those years.

It was only in the mid-90s that companies specializing in domestic delivery appeared in Russia. However, despite the seemingly huge untapped market, home delivery in Russia is taking root slowly.

“We were surprised to learn that Russians are simply not ready to use such a service. Created for private clients, our company was eventually forced to start delivering business correspondence and other things necessary for business. Ordinary consumers still prefer to go to the store,” says President of the Russian company City Express Sergei Bykov.

The main inconvenience is that the courier will only deliver goods that have already been paid for (that is, you have already purchased somewhere). The company has a price list, and over the phone they will tell you how much a particular service may cost. On average, delivery in Moscow of a parcel weighing about a kilogram costs about $2. The same cargo can be sent to another city for $40. And you need to pay about $300 to ship it abroad. “Actually, we don’t really count on the Russian consumer. Our clients are mainly foreigners working in Russia,” says Gennady Frolov, PR manager of the international delivery service TNT.

As for “just people,” sometimes the most unexpected ideas come to their minds. One young man, according to the stories of employees of the Moscow delivery service, even once asked to deliver himself to a girl who had quarreled with him under the guise of a donated washing machine. Fortunately, this kind of unconventional use of courier services is rare.

Among the clients of courier companies, private individuals make up a tiny minority - about 10 percent. And although almost all companies are ready to undertake the delivery of any item - from a piano to a bottle of oil from a nearby store - the vast majority of "private traders" use these services to deliver flowers and gifts.

Alexander decided to congratulate his wife on her birthday through a courier service. The goal was anonymity, not time savings. “Even the day before her birthday, I had to go to the store, choose flowers and champagne, and then take it to the central office of the courier service. What time savings can we talk about here?” - he says.

True, it must be said that such surprises, as a rule, are a great success. Accustomed to relying on their own strengths in the Soviet way, people usually don’t even know that they can congratulate each other in such an original way. “Until I received these flowers, I didn’t even think that this was possible here in Russia,” says Nadezhda, who received a gift in such an original way for the first time.

Abroad, the basis of the delivery market for individuals is the delivery of books and CDs. In Russia this is not yet possible. For example, in the USA a book costs about $20, and its delivery is $4 (1/5 of its cost). With us, the same book costs an average of $1.50, and the minimum delivery cost is 50 cents (1/3 of the cost). As a result, video and book clubs prefer to work with the post office rather than with courier service centers, which are faster but unable to compete on price.

During the first year of their existence, many companies operate at a loss, hoping for super-profits in the future. To do this, it is necessary that the services of such companies become a habit among our people and become part of their lives. So far, their clients have become either those who are very busy and not poor, or those who use it occasionally - for the sake of exoticism.


You can wish a happy birthday in such an unusual way - by ordering a bouquet of flowers from a courier delivery service. (Photo: Max Novikov )