Freshful, the fresh food division of eMAG group - the biggest online retailer in Romania, has registered a strong increase in sales in December and plans to expand further by 2024.

The company launched in the autumn of 2021 and used the experience gathered last December to prepare for this Christmas. Deliverers and sorters were brought on before the Christmas shopping rush started, bringing the Freshful team to more than 650 employees, almost half of which work in delivery. The company extended its delivery schedule, from 8 AM to midnight. It also launched the Estimated Time of Arrival function in the app, giving customers more precise delivery times.

The preparation paid off. “This year's winter holiday period was the most intense so far. We had four times the sales we had last Christmas, over 3,000 orders delivered in one day,” Andrei Popescu, general manager of Freshful, told ZF.

On the eve of the holidays, the most ordered products were still the basic ones, such as oil, flour, sugar, fruits, or vegetables. Seasonal products such as cozonac [sweetbread], toba, and ingredients for boeuf salad were also highly sought after, and so were exotic fruits, citrus fruits, and sweets. Numerous orders were built around water, which customers wanted to avoid having to carry home.

"Last year we saw what is ordered the most during this period and we prepared. We offered a selection of over 20 types of cozonac. We had cakes for all budgets – from RON 20 (EUR 4) to RON 150 (EUR 30)," says Andrei Popescu. The average receipt during this period amounted to RON 330 (EUR 66.75) plus VAT, which means that there were, on average, a little over 20 products in each shopping basket.

Freshful boasts 65,000 unique clients and 445,000 orders in 2022. Most clients order once a week. The company’s 150 delivery cars traveled four million kilometers this year to bring customers their orders. Freshful now plans to expand with a EUR 10 mln second warehouse in 2024.

radu@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Freshful)