JOKR – Making Grocery Shopping Significantly Faster, More Personalized, and Sustainable

“We are reinventing how grocery shopping is done. We solve the inconveniences that shopping today presents to consumers.”

We have all been there; the moment you leave the parking lot only to realize you forgot to pick up the jam jar; the chaos of not knowing which department cookies fall under; the dread of again heading back to the grocery store instead of enjoying a day out with family and friends. The weekly grocery store visit takes time away from doing the things you love. This is when instant grocery delivery apps come into the picture and gain a competitive edge over the traditional brick-and-mortar stores in the market. From both the customer and the business owner’s perspective, the benefits of instant grocery delivery services are evident.

JOKR is one such global platform for instant grocery and retail delivery at a hyper-local scale. JOKR makes the shopping experience smarter, faster, and more enjoyable, all while returning an extremely valuable asset to the consumer: their time. JOKR delivers orders within a few minutes of purchase and offers a smooth, frictionless, and nearly instant experience. This includes all sorts of products such as supermarket and convenience products, pharmaceuticals, and exclusive local products that are not available in regular supermarkets – basically anything people use frequently and need instantly, with a strong focus on groceries.

Ralf Wenzel, CEO of JOKR, spoke exclusively to The Silicon Review on how his company is giving time back to people by delivering their favorite groceries within minutes.

Interview Highlights

Q. What was the motivation behind starting JOKR?

JOKR was built by a team of professionals that has been working together for many years, some of them for over two decades. Every one of them has significant experience and passion for building consumer businesses and is intrigued by the idea of making customers’ lives easier and more enjoyable. That’s why building JOKR was a natural progression.

When looking at consumer behavior today, there are significant changes happening. It has shifted towards a need for instant delivery, personalization, and sustainability. There is more appreciation for local brands, as opposed to global brands. These are all requirements of an upcoming consumer generation that is not reflected in the current offerings of online and offline players. All of these aspects combined have driven our motivation to come up with a new generation of a retail platform that adheres to these new consumer demands.

Q. What makes JOKR relevant in today’s times? Could you give us some context?

JOKR solves the inconveniences that shopping today presents to consumers. Having to spend time venturing to the store to stand in long lines and dealing with not knowing which products the store will have stocked are all problems that disappear through JOKR. You can shop from the convenience of your home, don’t need to stand in line, see what is offered, and get your order delivered to your house within a few minutes. JOKR also enables small local businesses to sell their products via the app and benefit from the logistics and infrastructure. This way, the vendors will be able to reach a lot more consumers than before and deliver to them faster than they ever could.

Q. How is JOKR challenging the status quo?

Current online and offline grocery and retail offerings do not sufficiently adhere to the fast-evolving consumer trends. Online and offline shopping is mostly not enjoyable, time-consuming, not very personalized, and not focused on what customers really need and when they need it. And the current carbon footprint of most retail companies is disastrous, mostly because of inefficient and very manual supply chain processes. We focus our proposition on relevance, offering customers what they need and when they need it and allowing for ultimate and immediate availability and a more sustainable way of fulfilling customers’ main grocery and convenience product needs. For that, we need to integrate the supply chain and take out the intermediaries fully vertically. We establish direct access to the producers and farmers and do not depend on third-party suppliers because we have become our own supermarket, running our own warehouses and distribution centers. As a result, we are building a company that can be significantly more profitable than traditional retailers.

Q. What differentiates you from others in the space?

We have identified five key components that we believe create the biggest differentiation between both online and offline offers:

• There is a significant shift from offline to online consumer behavior. Offline still represents the majority of all retail and grocery transactions, especially in emerging markets, so the pure existence of an entirely online grocery business is already a differentiator.
• We live in a society of hyper-individualism, and the more you offer a proprietary assortment and user experience, the more the customer will appreciate you.
• We allow consumers to decide spontaneously, at the moment, and can either meet that need instantly or, if the customer prefers, at a time that suits them, i.e., that they determine. From instant to scheduled deliveries, our priority is to give customers what they want, when they need it.
• Appreciation of local products. Consumer interest is growing for smaller, local brands while the interest for large, global companies is decreasing.
• By cutting the supply chain, having a strong focus on local products, and focusing on relevance, we can have a significant impact on our planet.

Q. How do you push for sustainability through your work?

JOKR is working towards being the first climate-positive instant grocery delivery service in the world by decarbonizing its entire supply chain by 2030. The strategy essentially follows four steps:

• Optimize the demand and supply to minimize direct/indirect energy consumption and waste generated in the upstream and downstream operations at the hub level.
• Focus on getting customers only what they need and when they need it, building relevance than wastage and over-consumption.
• Electrify the fleet (entire current and future) and other operations of JOKR where other forms of energy are consumed.
• Decarbonize the entire energy consumption into renewable electricity.
• Engage suppliers to encourage them to disclose and reduce their emissions.

Q. Could you tell us about the work culture at JOKR?

The JOKR culture is reflective of our megadiverse and global team, and it continues to shift as our company matures. The elements of our culture that are “non-negotiable” and also consist of our core values:

• Taking care: we go the extra mile with customers, employees, and communities
• Owning it: we start with the sustainable choice and take full accountability
• Enjoying the adventure: We have fun while changing the future of retail
• Making an impact: each one of us should improve the company every day
• Always acting with integrity
• All are welcome

Please tell us about your plans for expansion.

We are planning on launching more cities in both new and existing countries in the near future. Though we first want to deliver an outstanding customer experience in all existing cities, we are in. The quantity, quality, and availability of our assortment and consistent order and delivery fulfillment operations are the most important parts of our value proposition. Our success is not measured by how broad but by how deep we go. Great retention rates, positive and best-in-class contribution margins, healthy growth, and high customer satisfaction is what determines success, and this is what we want to prove. We want to be the biggest challenger to traditional supermarkets and eventually to all of retail. We have the opportunity to build the most customer-centric e-commerce business in history.

Ralf Wenzel | CEO

Ralf Wenzel has an immense passion for bringing people together, both in his personal and professional life. He learned from previous companies which he has built that success comes from bringing together the right team and building the right culture. The innovation is never in the idea but always in the execution.

Ralf has lived across various continents and countries, grew up in Latin America and Germany, and now consider New York City his home. He has a passion for solving real-world problems, making this planet a better place to live and survive.

“JOKR is working towards being the first climate-positive instant grocery delivery service in the world by decarbonizing its entire supply chain by 2030.”