Ocado concludes a customer acquisition agreement with Getir | News

Ocado Retail has entered into a customer acquisition deal with Getir to send messages and promotions to former users of the fast grocery service, which announced its withdrawal from the UK last month.

This week, emails were sent to former customers of Getir and Gorillas (a one-time rival that Getir acquired in 2022) urging them to switch to Ocado Retail’s fast Zoom by Ocado service.

The email said Zoom offers the “same smart shopping experience” as Getir, but with “five times the selection” and “the best of M&S products”. Recipients were offered 25% off and free shipping on their first Zoom order.

Gorillas customers were told the service “won’t leave you hanging” and that “we’ve offered you up to 30% off your first store and three months of free deliveries” on Zoom.

Emails were sent to all Getir and Gorillas customers who had agreed to use the service, with customers outside Zoom’s coverage areas being directed to Ocado.com.

“As Getir and Gorillas leave the UK, we are delighted to offer their customers the chance to trial Zoom by Ocado,” Gemma McIver, head of Zoom by Ocado, told The Grocer. “With a huge range of products, including M&S food, delivered in less than 60 minutes, we are sure customers will be delighted with this service.”

Ocado Zoom launched its first location in Acton, west London, in 2019, and two further highly automated dark stores will open in east London in 2022. In the same year, the first Zoom site opened outside the capital, in Leeds. The sites offer an inventory of approximately 10,000 SKUs with delivery within 60 minutes or within an hour slot selected by the customer.

The emergence in early 2021 of fast food manufacturers offering delivery in less than 20 minutes made Zoom seem sluggish compared to Zoom.

Ocado Group chief executive Tim Steiner dismissed the then rapid retail start-ups as a “fad”, saying that “it’s a small market… people just won’t behave like that”.

Since then, several of the initial group of fast food companies have ceased operations. In April, Getir confirmed its exit from the UK, announcing it would also withdraw from Germany, the Netherlands and the United States to “concentrate its financial resources on Turkey”, where it started operations in 2015. The fast trading player said the markets generated only 7 % of their revenues.

Getir franchisees told The Grocer that due to the company’s decision to withdraw, they are at risk of losing more than half of their investment and therefore, in an attempt to make up for the losses, they are selling refrigerators, freezers and branded mopeds, helmets and jackets on online auction sites.

Things haven’t been smooth sailing for Zoom by Ocado either. Its Leeds Zoom facility closed after just over a year after failing to generate enough emissions in its catchment area. The company says its “review of Zoom’s network strategy and performance will aim to further optimize the use of its London facilities.”