Bodega, store owners fear grocery delivery apps
BY KIRSTYN BRENDLEN AND
GABRIELE HOLTERMANN
This is the third story in
Schneps Media’s five-part series
examining the proliferation
of grocery delivery services
across the city — and
the impact they’re having on
residents and brick-and-mortar
business owners alike.
Quick-commerce grocery
delivery services like JOKR,
Gorillas, and Fridge No More
have flooded New York City’s
market this year, promising
quick delivery and relatively
low prices for everything
from a full week of groceries
to a forgotten dinner ingredient
or evening ice cream purchase.
Where traditional grocery
stores shell out for big pieces
of the city’s pricey real estate
to stock thousands of items
and keep the store orderly
and well-staffed, the apps
operate out of “dark stores,”
small warehouses carrying
about 2,000 items.
The companies say spending
less money on rent and
dealing with food waste
allows them to keep their
prices low, about on-par with
local grocery stores for most
items, and delivery is free or
low-cost, unlike more established
apps like InstaCart or
Fresh Direct.
Grocery stores aren’t
the only businesses with
something to worry about.
For many of the city’s nine
million residents, the local
corner store is the go-to for
a quick purchase. Stocked
with the essentials, more
than 10,000 bodegas serve
their customers faithfully at
all hours. In some parts of
the city, bodegas are more
than a quick stop — they’re
the only food store nearby.
While it’s all still new,
some grocery store and bodega
owners, still recovering
from months of lockdowns,
are concerned about the disruption.
‘The American Way is done’
“Any bodegas that were in
the busy commercial neighborhoods,
they didn’t do too
well,” said Youseff Mubarez,
director of public relations at
the Brooklyn-based Yemeni
American Merchants Association.
“Rents were high,
not a lot of foot traffic. But
Muhammad Esa owner of Farm Shop Deli in Park Slope. Photo by Gabriele Holtermann
the stores in food deserts,
obviously they did their best
to stay open and get as much
product as they can, but they
stayed in business because
they were selling what most
people in the neighborhood
need every day.”
Muhammad Esa, who
has been in the retail business
for decades, learned the
trade from his father and
uncles. He has owned Farm
Shop Deli on 5th Avenue and
4th Street in Park Slope for
twenty years, and said the
apps aren’t the first threat to
business.
Long before the grocery
delivery apps, the business
changed when wholesale operators
like Costco and BJ’s
became open to the public.
“So we are just surviving
on necessities that people
just need and come and
grab,” Esa said. “We’re not
really, like, maybe 30 years
ago, when we used to be just
like a supermarket, we buy
TIMESLEDGER | Q 30 NS.COM | NOV. 5 - NOV. 11, 2021
wholesale, we buy just like
a supermarket. Then things
started to change when the
wholesale became available
to the public.”
Small businesses don’t
stand a chance against corporations
like Costco or
Whole Foods, he feels, because
corporations have too
much influence over politicians,
which has chipped
away on regulations that protected
small business owners
in the past.
“The American Way is
done,” Esa said. “It’s just a
thing of the past.”
Jose Bello, a Washington
Heights native and founder
of My Bodega Online, was
encouraged by the city’s
decision to cap marketing
and delivery fees apps like
Uber Eats and DoorDash can
charge restaurants — but
feels it’s unlikely regulations
are in the works for
new apps.
“This half a billion dollar
industry was created in
the last 18 months,” he said.
“By the time that people realize
the effect that they may
or may not have —maybe either
they burst as a bubble,
or they take over everything
— it’s too late, they are here.”
Mubarez said more hardship
is coming for bodega
owners and their employees
as emergency grants run
dry and the unemployment
payments that were allowing
customers to spend their
money stop.
“Right now, all the businesses
are like, ‘I’m making
25, 30 percent less than I was
making last month, it’s getting
tougher to stay open,
and stuff like that,” Mubarez
said. “It’s just the worst timing
for lower-income communities,
they’re getting less
money, and then, you know,
the more affluent people like
landlords are saying, ‘Oh, it’s
time to raise rent again, everything
is back to normal.’
It’s just widening the gap.”
The potential to adapt
Bello launched My Bodega
Online, a delivery platform
for bodegas, last year.
Many were already delivering
informally, he said,
when customers would call
up wanting something and
they’d send out an employee
who wasn’t busy on a bike or
e-bike.
The app makes ordering
and delivering easier and
more efficient for bodegas
and their customers, and
makes the process a little
more official for customers
who might not be used to
calling up to place an order.
Adapting to the new reality
and keeping up with technology
is critical if bodegas
want to stay competitive,
Bello said.
“They are so big,” he said
of the new delivery services.
“Bodegas are not seeing what
THE RACE TO DELIVER
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