Buying meat is one of those things that don’t need to be stressful. It should be as easy as walking into your favorite butchery, making your purchase and walking out. However, this is not usually the case. Personal experience, living in “Nairobi Suburbs” means that I have no access to a really good well-stocked butchery, I have to put up with ushago grade butcheries that can’t even sell you beef steak, let alone minced meat.
This is what led me to the discovery of Herdy. Herdy is an online groceries store that sells a variety of meat and select vegetables online. The service, which is offered through an Android app, iOS app and web platform offers what Derrick Muturi, founder of Herdy describes as a ‘premium cut products’. “Instead of stocking usual products that you’d find at your butchery, we’ve stocked a lot of prime cuts,” he says.
The service was officially launched back in August 2016 and to Derrick’s surprise, the business had zero sales until the beginning of December, a day he says he will never forget. “When we launched in August 2016, we had zero sales. Guys were looking at our website, we had traffic but no one was buying,” he starts. “Just as we were about to give up, we got an order. It was a small order of Kes.800 on December 3rd because we took three days to deliver.”
Back then, logistics was the biggest issue that Hardy faced. These issues have since been ironed out and delivery time has been shortened to around three to four hours from the time of order, with expedited deliveries of within an hour expected as from next year. The business has grown from that one customer to serving hundreds of customers every month.
Seamless Experience
Remember my story of ushago-grade butcheries around my neighborhood? I decided to place an order of lamb chops from Herdy through their app. 1KG of lamb chops for Kes.600 with a delivery charge of Kes.150. Please note that same-day delivery is done only for orders placed before 2PM, which I did. The meat was delivered the same day, in my location at around 7PM after ordering at 2PM that afternoon.
Using the service was fairly easy, all you have to do access their website, www.herdy.co or through their Android app or iOS app. You will be required to sign up – for delivery purposes. After this, you select the product you want from the catalog, there’s a huge variety; from cereals, seafood, red meat, white meat, spices, fruits and even flowers. Interestingly, they even offer to marinated meat.
At the moment, Herdy is running a sale on all their products with a 15% discount on total price for any purchase made between today, 18th December 2018 and 22nd December 2018. All you have to do to claim your discount is to place your order through the website and upon checkout, add the coupon code: TECHWEEZ. There’s also free delivery for orders above Kes.2,500.
It’s interesting to see how e-commerce has evolved from electronics, furniture and clothing to everyday items such as groceries.
