Why (and who) orders non-veg online

Online meat delivery in India became a rage in the past few years but then it has stalled. This is an analysis on why people order meat online, how does it differ by geographies.

In the last note, I shared my thoughts on why quick-commerce is growing by relying on people's inherent laziness to plan. 

Overall, my point was that people move towards better shopping experiences

I wanted to dive a bit deeper into the Online meat delivery market.

This market has grown manifold over the last few years. Brands like Licious. Fresh-to-home, Meatigo, etc., have become household names. 

The primary reasons are two-fold:

We like the food, not the origin.

The shops are usually poorly maintained, the hygiene is poor, and too many people find the entire shopping process repulsive. This is a prominent hypocrisy in our society. We relish non-veg food, utterly oblivious that the thing on our plate was walking a few hours ago, and we don't accept it.

Online meat delivery gave us a much-needed escape from this. Chicken is just a pink-looking vegetable delivered in a neatly wrapped package, ready to be cooked. 

Consumers and Customers are different.

Because of the reasons mentioned above, non-veg shopping was inherently a male bastion. I presume because our Y-chromosomes are programmed to be slightly more comfortable with the sight of blood and violence, probably because they come from a long lineage of people who were hunters and warriors.

But Women managed the kitchen (and still do). 

So, this category was a classic case of the consumer not being the customer.

Online meat shopping gave the power back to the consumer.

Interesting Insight:

I searched for" online chicken delivery" and “Online Fish delivery” (these two being the most consumed non-vegetarian items) on Google Trends. I presumed this would mirror the non-veg consumption pattern across different states.

But was caught by surprise.

Check the graph below.

All the states with a lower share of online meat delivery also have lower non-veg consumption. Among the higher non-veg eating states, Andhra, Bihar and Odisha have a lower online share primarily because of the supply gaps. Most of the regular brands don’t service these states. 

However, West Bengal has a lower online propensity despite the higher supply penetration. Maybe it defies the logic. As portrayed in the popular media, Bengalis (and mostly women) prefer to shop their fish themselves. A part of their ritual. And that is why, despite the massive dollars spent on performance marketing, online delivery isn’t yet that normal.

Peter Drucker said “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” 

Apart from that, in business, Context eats strategy for lunch, deep fried and barbecued.