NEWSLETTER
The fork He is only seven years old, but it has been a roller coaster for the French startup. During this time, the online groceries has gone through a global pandemic, followed by the rise of the new rapid trade companies backed by the company that promised deliveries of groceries in less than 15 minutes, followed by the implosion of that vertical.
When you talk to the co-founder and CEO of the Fourche, Nathan Labat, does not spend too much time to think about Flink, Getir, Gopuff, Gorillas and all the new Q-Commerce companies that swarmed around 2021 in Europe. That is because the commercial model of the Fourche could be considered the perfect opposite of all that. Although startup is also Backed by VCHe has taken a different path.
Most of the Fourche inventory consists of healthy and organic products with a long useful life. Think of olive oil, diapers, cereals, shampoo and coffee beans.
“The dating on three purchase patterns. You have a purchase pattern, which is the quick recharge: “What am I going to eat tonight?” – It leads to very low average order values: € 20 to € 30, ”Labat explained.
“Then, you have a weekly pattern, where you plan more, you are going to buy fruits and vegetables, fresh products, etc.,” he continued. “Then you have the opportunity to accumulate, which is really about filling your cabinets for a month, a month and a half.
“These are three very different patterns. And we are really identified as a storage company. “
The company only offers a handful of options for each product category so that it has broad coverage of the needs of its users without overwhelming them with choice. It also offers your own brand products.
In a way, Fourche has been trying to differentiate its offer from what it can get from traditional supermarket chains and their delivery services.
“There is a lack of consumer confidence,” Labat argued, shouting “the overwhelming catalog with horrible things, everything you already know as a consumer, which led to the emergence of Yuka“, An application of food health quality.
Aimed at 100 million euros in income
With the Fourche, customers pay an annual membership rate to register, currently costs about € 60 per year ($ 65.50 to current exchange rates). After that, customers do not pay a delivery rate for orders greater than a certain threshold.
On this front, Labat names Costco and Market As inspirations. (But amazon Prime is perhaps the most familiar user of the delivery membership model). Subscriptions create loyalty to the brand, increase retention rates and could even improve the average value of the order.
Instead of paying a subscription to obtain diapers, another to obtain fresh coffee beans and another for personal care products, customers can obtain all these Fourche products.
“The subscription models have become increasingly common,” Labat said. “You have the impression that in food, it is interesting because you can offer something like 'a subscription to govern them all'”.
Fourche metric tend to support those assumptions. The company currently has 120,000 members. On average, they order about € 120 of products once a month or every 45 days.
In general, Fourche says it is on the way to generate 100 million euros in volume of gross merchandise in 2025.
The Startup unity economy is also improving. “We went from -15% in the Ebitda margin to -9% last year, and we are on the way to -2% this year,” he said, added: “Our goal is to achieve our first profitable quarter at the end of 2025”.
Part of the reason why the Fourche business model seems to work is that a good scale. The company does not have to increase marketing spending as it grows because most Fourche customers come from references. Startup says it spends about 5% of its marketing income.
The other great reason is that the Fourche only has a warehouse that covers the entire country. It is now An automated warehouse – Built using Autostore technology. “We have a relatively active light model with a high recurrence rate,” Labat summarized.
As an additional benefit, 46% of the Fourche customers reside in the field. This is not a startup that only serves customers who live in large cities, since they already have many options to buy edible.
Next, the Fourche wants to grow its client base in Germany, where it recently launched its online organic supermarket, under the brand Arable heart. And if you can demonstrate that the model is replicable in different countries, there will probably be more geographical expansions in the future.
(Tagstotranslate) ackerherz
