What is hyperlocal marketplace? How to kickstart on-demand near me delivery business?

Hyperlocal marketplace or on-demand near me delivery model promises the product or services are delivered to the customers in a very shorter span of time.

The hyperlocal delivery model helps the end-users to delegate their daily chores more conveniently. On-demand delivery brings a door of opportunity for small-scale retailers and merchants.

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Leading hyperlocal names like InstaCart, Yelp, DoorDash, , Good Eggs, and many others have evolved in recent years and now they capture a large segment of the market.

Lately, on-demand near me marketplace delivery has scaled, and now it even shows up in different verticals like pharmacy, booking, and delivery.

If you are looking forward to create your very own hyperlocal business model, first of all, you should understand the different aspects of the hyperlocal delivery model –

What is hyperlocal marketplace?

Hyperlocal refers to focusing on a small targeted community or geographical area.

Hyperlocal model works on two primary factors –

• Geography
• Time

Shorter delivery time and more extensive targeted geography are the signs of any successful hyperlocal model.

We need more local sellers to target a large number of regions ensuring fast delivery.

Like any other online multi-vendor marketplace, on-demand near me delivery model lets sellers to sell products and services via same online store.

In the hyperlocal marketplace, respective sellers can only sell in targeted zones. Sellers earn by selling their products or offering services, and store owners or stakeholders earn through commissions.

Hyperlocal or near me delivery model requires the fastest possible delivery with strict time constraints. Fastest delivery is only possible if local vendors supply products or offer services in their nearby targeted regions.

On-demand near me delivery model is ideal for non-durable household grocery and dairy products, as they need to be delivered in shorter span of time.

Customers or end-users receive products and services from nearby sellers or professionals which makes sure delivery is fast and consumables are fresh.

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How does hyperlocal marketplace works?

Users can place orders from different channels like a website, mobile app, or a phone call. The hyperlocal marketplace runs on the omnichannel approach delivering a seamless experience across different channels.

The hyperlocal marketplace has a robust realtime back-end architecture. Sellers receive orders from customers and make sure orders are fulfilled within strict time constraints.

The hyperlocal marketplace works in four primary stages –

• Mobile app or a website to track the current location of a user.
• A user can place an order only if the seller accepts orders from his detected location.
• The seller gets the notification for the new order.
• The delivery boy picks and delivers the products.

Different hyperlocal marketplace delivery models for different verticals

On-demand near me delivery model have shown a fairly wide spread in last few years. We can now find its traces across different verticals. Hyperlocal marketplace delivery divides into four horizontal industries –

1. FMCG or CPG

Fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) or Consumer packaged goods (CPG) are the products that have a shorter shelf life and they expire within a few hours or days.

Non-durable households like groceries and bakery items are a few of the most popular examples of FMCG.

Few of the top FMCG hyperlocal marketplace examples includes InstaCart, DoorDash, InstaShop, Uber Eats, and Yelp.

FMCG/CPG hyperlocal marketplace has following set of top verticals –

• Food
• Grocery
• Dairy
• Bakery
• Organic Products
• Medicines/Pharmacy

2. On-demand Services

On-demand hyperlocal marketplace services have been fairly popular in recent years. Services can range from the housekeeping to the relaxing massage.

The hyperlocal marketplace lets the consumers to easily demand services from nearby professionals.

Few of the top examples in hyperlocal services marketplace includes Handy, Urban Clap, SweepSouth.

On-demand hyperlocal marketplace services has following set of top verticals –

• Appliances Repair
• AC Maintenance
• Beauty and Haircut
• Electricians
• Carpenters
• Cleaning or Pest Control
• Housekeeping
• Mechanics
• Packers and Movers
• Plumbers
• Spa and Massage

3. On-demand Booking

In the fast-moving modern world, consumers have a huge demand for booking and rental.

On-demand hyperlocal marketplace for booking includes everything from booking a one on one appointment with a doctor on ZocDoc to requesting a ride on Uber or Lyft.

On-demand hyperlocal marketplace booking has following set of top verticals –

• Appointment Booking
• Movie or Entertainment Booking
• Restaurant Table Booking
• Ride Booking
• Fun Zone Booking

4. On-demand Concierge

Hyperlocal on-demand near me logistics or concierge is still evolving, but it is showing very bright traces in its early phase.

Urban users are generally occupied and cannot afford to send tiffin, documents, or other items themselves, so they prefer someone else to get it done for them.

Hello Alfred, GoGet, Dunzo and Fetchr are the emerging startups in hyperlocal on-demand concierge industry.

On-demand hyperlocal logistics booking has the following set of top verticals –

• Parcels and Envelopes
• Freight or Logistics

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What are the different features required for the hyperlocal marketplace?

Store owners or stakeholders, sellers, and buyers need a different set of features depending upon their roles.

Sellers and store owners should be able to add a set of targeted locations and shipping rates to deliver their products.

Whenever a user tries to place a new order, his location should be automatically tracked and the user should be offered by the goods and services from his nearby sellers only.

Buyers require following set of on-demand near me delivery marketplace features –

1. Auto-detection of the user’s current location.
2. Buy products from nearby sellers.
3. Personalized search and shopping experience.
4. Support for different modes of online and offline payments.
5. On-demand pickup or delivery.
6. View or post reviews and ratings for both the products and sellers.
7. Real-time order confirmation and delivery tracking.

Retailers need the following set of explicit hyperlocal marketplace features –

1. The seller can add multiple locations for targeted delivery.
2. Custom shipping rates for the different locations.
3. The seller can receive real-time order notifications with the customer’s tracked current location.
4. Individual seller profile and ratings.
5. Seller’s products should only be shown in targeted zones.

Store owners or stakeholders need the following features –

• Targeting specific zones for delivery using radius unit and range.
• Adding multiple locations and shipping rates for targeted delivery in specific zones.
• Managing commissions, sales, and revenues.
• Performing bulk actions like adding shipping rates on behalf of sellers using a CSV file.

In a nutshell, users should easily check the availability of the products from nearby sellers. Once a user places an order, the order should be fulfilled in the shortest possible time by the nearby sellers.

Top challenges for hyperlocal marketplace

As compared to traditional multi-vendor marketplaces, the hyperlocal marketplace needs a more robust architecture for the fast-moving process without any scope of loopholes.

The on-demand near me hyperlocal marketplaces face the following set of challenges –

1. Fast delivery

Delivering consumables in tight time constraints makes a true win for any hyperlocal marketplace. On-demand products or services need to have timely delivery, as consumers’ schedules depend on these items.

Delivery can be processed via three different models in on-demand hyperlocal marketplaces –

• Fulfilled by third-party deliverer

It is hard for any store owner or stakeholder to hire multiple delivery staff in the initial phase to cover a large geographic area.

Relying on trustworthy third-party delivery services ensures on-time delivery, avoiding any possible hustles.

Deliveroo, DoorDash, GrubHub, and BiteSquad are some of the biggest players in the third-party hyperlocal food delivery space.

• Fulfilled by vendors

The hyperlocal marketplace works as a lead channel for local sellers and retailers.

As a result, local vendors often deliver the products to nearby locations with their valets and delivery boys.

In hyperlocal on-demand services marketplaces, professionals visit on-sight to cater to the needs of the users. Urban Clap, MrUsta, and Zaarly are a few of the most renowned names where services are fulfilled by professionals.

• Fulfilled by the store owner or stakeholders

When deliveries are fulfilled by store owners, it certainly has financial benefits. It also brings trust to both the end customers and sellers.

Setting up a complete delivery channel is a tedious task and needs expertise like managing parking lots and getting insurance for the vehicles and staff.

2. Omnichannel Experience

Depending upon the different scenarios, consumers often use different channels to place orders from local vendors via online hyperlocal marketplaces.

Small players often neglect the importance of ordering via the website and focus on accepting orders via mobile apps only. It leads to potential loss.

The mobile-first approach is efficient, but it can not override the need of having a responsive website.

In the hyperlocal marketplace, consumers should be able to place orders from different channels. Different channels should be interconnected and offer an omnichannel experience to the users.

3. Realtime Ordering Architecture

The hyperlocal marketplace delivery is a fast-moving process. The real-time ordering process is the key requirement to ensure everything takes the shortest possible time.

When a user places an order, sellers should get the realtime notification to accept and process the order.

A user is also supposed to receive the real-time notifications for order confirmation and fulfillment.

In hyperlocal on-demand near me delivery marketplaces, consumers can track the real-time location of the delivery staff.

These realtime features need a highly scalable and robust underlying technology architecture.

How to create hyperlocal marketplace?

First of all, stakeholders or store owners need to have an ordering channel to let users place an order.

Store owners must have an integrated scalable software solution where the seller can accept and process the newly arrived orders.

The store owner or staff members should be able to track the order and delivery status, ensuring everything is done as per the promised time.

There are three primary ordering channels –

• Online Store Website
• Mobile apps
• Progressive Web Apps (PWA)

We also need to make sure all of these three ordering channels provide a seamless omnichannel experience to the hyperlocal marketplace end-users.

How to create online hyperlocal marketplace website?

Creating a hyperlocal marketplace website store from scratch is a tedious and time taking task.

Creating a fully customized content management commerce framework for an online website will take months and a huge workforce along with in-depth industry expertise.

Hyperlocal marketplace website can be divided into two parts –

1. Creating an online eCommerce website

To create an online eCommerce store, stakeholders can rely upon existing popular open-source platforms like Magento, PrestaShop, OpenCart, or WooCommerce.

Open-source eCommerce platforms are secure, stable, and free to use.

Open-source eCommerce frameworks require hosting and a domain name along with scalable server architecture for future needs.

If you are planning a quick and easy launch with the on-demand hyperlocal marketplace, without investing huge capitals and hustles of managing servers, you can rely upon SAAS driven eCommerce framework like Shopify.

2. Converting store into hyperlocal marketplace website

An online store that is based on a standard eCommerce framework can be easily converted into a full-functional hyperlocal marketplace website using plug and play extensions or apps.

Hyperlocal marketplace extension is available for all popular eCommerce frameworks like Shopify , Magento, PrestaShop, Odoo, WooCommerce and OpenCart.

Using these ready to use solutions, any stakeholder can create on-demand near me delivery platform and start selling within few minutes.

How to create hyperlocal marketplace mobile apps?

Mobile apps are developed with two popular development approaches –

Native mobile apps

Native apps are primarily created for the Apple App Store (iOS) and Google Play Store (Android). Each native app has its separate source codebase and developed using tools and languages provided by respective platforms.

Native apps works effectively on respective mobile platforms ensuring high stability and efficiency, but native mobile apps have a higher development curve and costings.

Cross Platform

Cross platform apps have the single source codebase. Both iOS and Android apps are deployed and published using the same code base.

Cross Platforms apps are created using React Native or Flutter. Cross-platform apps are cost-friendly and have a low development curve.

Omnichannel mobile app development for the on-demand delivery marketplace is a lot of work and requires in-depth expertise.

Stakeholders can rely upon existing solutions like Mobikul App builder to instantly create mobile apps for hyperlocal near me delivery marketplaces.

Mobikul app builder uses the standard online store’s APIs to create the full-fledged native or cross-platform omnichannel hyperlocal on-demand delivery marketplace apps.

The hyperlocal mobile marketplace app builder is available for both Magento and OpenCart. Also, read more information on On-Demand Hyperlocal Delivery App.

How to create progressive web app for hyperlocal on-demand delivery marketplace?

Progressive web apps are lightweight and can work on slow internet connections (even offline in some extreme conditions).

Its app like interface improvises the user experience. A user can optionally install the progressive web app on his device for later use.

PWA is scalable and have a responsive design that works across a large range of devices ranging from small-screen smartphones to large screen desktops.

PWA can also be published on Google Play Store so that android users can directly download and install it.

Push notifications powered PWA can be very effective, to inform users about deals, offers, and other important updates like order confirmation or delayed delivery.

All these prominent features make PWA an ideal choice for hyperlocal near me delivery marketplaces.

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Hyperlocal on-demand near me delivery marketplace business model has been successful in the last few years.

The hyperlocal marketplace not only brings comfort and ease for the end-users but also helps vendors and sellers to extend their selling reach.

Store owners and stakeholders are adapting hyperlocal near me delivery or services business model to scale their business and make more revenues with commissions.

Conclusion

In recent years, hyperlocal on-demand near me marketplace delivery has penetrated different verticals like FMCG/CPG goods, booking, services, and concierge.

The hyperlocal marketplace needs robust underlying realtime software architecture which assures the fastest possible delivery from nearby or local sellers in the targeted regions or zones.

The hyperlocal marketplace has an integrated website and mobile app which caters to the need of consumers.

Creating an omnichannel oriented hyperlocal marketplace store from scratch is a tedious task that takes a lot of time, effort, and investment.

Stakeholders and store owners should use existing solutions like Magento, PrestaShop, OpenCart, WooCommerce, and Shopify to create an online store.

Stakeholders should prefer ready to use extensions and mobile app builders to convert a store into the hyperlocal marketplace so that they can quickly match with the existing fast-moving and growing hyperlocal competitors.

We have a range of ready to use hyperlocal marketplace apps and extensions, that can help you to kickstart your on-demand near me delivery marketplace in no-time.

We can also collaborate with you to develop custom software as per your requirements. It’s time to turn your idea into a working reality. Send us an email, and we’ll get back to you within 24 – 48 hours.

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If you have any suggestions or insights, you can write them in the comments below.