S Group confirms service expansion to more than 100 stores by the end of the year
Emission-free robot deliveries have become well established during their first year of operation and will be introduced to a number of new areas in the future. Starship Technologies autonomous delivery robots have so far delivered more than 150,000 orders in Finland. A typical customer is a family with children, for whom the robot delivers milk, bananas and minced meat.
Robot delivery is popular across the board, orders have been placed on the S-kaupat app by both younger and elderly households as well as single person households and DINKS (dual income, no kids). However, a larger proportion of orders are made by families with children under school age, young people living in single households, and those between the ages of 25 and 44.
When it comes to delivery times, robot delivery purchases come in steadily every weekday, but the pace speeds up slightly towards the weekend. Saturday is the most popular order day and most orders are made in the evenings.
Over the past year, the most popular robot delivery items are: milk, bananas, minced meat, energy drinks, chicken fillet strips, rice pies, cream cheese, cucumber, iceberg lettuce and mini plum tomatoes. Robots deliver basic foodstuffs throughout the country, which means that the top 10 of the shopping list is very similar regardless of which city you are in.
S Group Business Developer Tiina Meyer, who develops home deliveries for S group’s online food store said:
“Robots make customers’ everyday life easier: they quickly deliver refills to homes when the refrigerator runs out of milk in the evening or bananas are needed for snacks the next day. Mainly, with robot delivery, you order the same products that you normally buy at the grocery store. Treats for weekend evenings and remote lunches are of course also ordered, and in the summer, for example, ice cream, says.
S Group’s partner in robot deliveries is Starship Technologies, which is the world’s leading developer and manufacturer of autonomous delivery robots.
Starship’s European Senior Business Development Director Sandra Beaumont said:
“We are excited to be able to celebrate the milestone together with the S group. Our robots do a great job delivering shopping to people all over Finland – and even more so during the long, very snowy last winter. Our operations in Finland show that Starship’s business model scales excellently and that people find the service valuable in their surrounding areas. We have just reached the 150,000-delivery mark in Finland and we are looking forward to more.”
BACKGROUND NOTES:
Order numbers: over 150,000 shipped orders
Robots were piloted in the capital region in 2022. The successful pilot led to a formal partnership between S Group and Starship to bring robots to stores across the country.
Robot deliveries started in May 2023 in Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa in more than ten Alepa stores and have expanded rapidly to almost 50 stores all over Finland during the year.
Robot delivery will expand to new stores and new areas during the spring and summer. New locations will be announced soon, but the plan it have robot delivery in 100 stores by the end of the year.
Robot delivery is currently available in 14 cities: Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, Lohja, Karkkila, Somero, Salo, Tampere, Turku, Lieto, Pori, Rauma, Jyväskylä, Kuopio and Oulu. Robots deliver mostly from Alepa and Sale stores, but also from some S-markets.
Robot deliveries can be ordered in the S-kaupat application. Robot delivery has increased the popularity of the S-kaupat application, and through robot delivery orders, the application has been downloaded an estimated 20,000 times per month over the past year.
The customer feedback has been amazingly good – people especially love the music played by the robots when the customer receives the purchases (customers can order a song with their groceries!), for the delivery speed, and quite a few people comment on the cuteness of the robots as well, says Tiina Meyer.
For more information:
Tiina Meyer, Business Developer, S-group retail, tiina.meyer@sok.fi
On behalf of Starship Technologies, Harri Kammonen, PR Agency Manifesto, 040 500 1120, harri.kammonen@manifesto.fi
Starship Technologies is revolutionising transport services with autonomous robots. The robots are designed to deliver food, groceries and packages locally within minutes. The robots have travelled more than 13 million kilometres and made more than 6 million autonomous deliveries around the world. Starship was founded by Janus Friis (co-founder of Skype) and Ahti Heinla (chief architect of Skype), who is also the company’s CEO
