Lederhosen, SD cards and more SD cards. My first rumblings with Instacart and Doordash. Having approx 24 hours in Nashville for the Shopware, #Shoptoberfest and being ill prepared was a great incentive to not get my hands dirty but to get the items I needed conveniently brought to me at my highstool in our Hotel. Bearing in mind, I had been awake since 3, just after the nightlife had slowed down. I had been thrown off the mechanical bull in approximately 12 seconds - maybe more. I’m more Buzz Lightyear than Sheriff Woody it seems.
But I was doing my mental prep and got out of bed early - brisk walk around the streets and even at 7am it was about 30 degrees (Irish heat) damn near freezing for the locals. I realized I needed my lederhosen and SD cards for interviews, just in case.
Instacart had let me down the day before but it seems being in the place at the right time, is the way to quarterback this one. My options were limited and I couldn’t opt in to the Temu like offers due to time constraints but I was able to find somewhere to deliver my Lederhosen, reliably before my Uber. Selection was poor and the search and nav even worse. I found it clunky and initially showed me many out ot stock items. I am not picky, but for those who are, you would have walked. It is almost 8.03 AM - too early for a beer I thought. Correct said my inner child.
Let’s make sure I have enough SD cards for podcast recordings. I didn’t like instacart enough to go back. Enter doordash. Surprisingly good UX, simple, intuitive and leading with delivery timeframe as it’s proposition - not the product or where it was coming from, or even its price. This was all about now. Walgreens had them and I could see drivers in the vicinity - 41 mins later, my driver arrived with my cards. He declined to take his drop off photo of me shaking hands with him, whilst wearing lederhosen. it is still before 8.50 AM, so I guess this was a bit much.
Not wanting to really fall short, i needed 2 more. back to doordash. At this point, I was so enthused, i was seeing was there anything else I needed? What cleaning products did I need at home. Teetch whitening in 30 mins? Maybe. But overwhelmingly this was exceptional from start to finish.
It is easy to see in densely populated areas why Q commerce has a place - not every place or every need but where travel is a challenge, where reliability is key, it has a place. I used it again in London, my wanderlust for Luton was just not there - dinner in a hotel lobby suited me just fine. It is hard to say Q commerce is convenience - it is more about necessity. Superdrug just announced a 24/7 deal with Just Eat. I could see its place and I would pay the premium. But it is limited to need state and hard to translate beyond that. A little late to this party but it lets me share a video of me on a bull in Nashville. Thank you Shopware.