We have all been there, going through our kitchens late at night, only to realise we are out of our favourite snacks, or worse, still needing to restock on essentials but having to wait until morning.

But retailers such as Woolworths and delivery apps such as Zulzi or Uber Eats are putting those days behind us.

Thanks to a growing trend in late-night grocery shopping, retailers are now catering to your after-dark needs; creating convenience, and flexibility, and making lives easier.

One of South Africa’s biggest food retailers Woolworths has partnered with Uber Eats and Engen Quickshop & Co recently launching delivery service “Woolies After Dark” to make it easier for their customers to access and have their goodies delivered right at their doorstep until midnight.

Customers can now shop at selected Woolworths Foodstops in Engen through the Uber Eats app.

Delivery Apps that partnered with various stores to provide a convenient shopping experience and delivery:

Uber Eats and Woolworths are not the only ones that offer this service. Multiple stores in South Africa such as Pick n Pay, Dischem and Checkers have partnered with delivery apps to provide convenience to their customers.

Makro, Dischem, Pick n Pay as well as Woolworths have partnered with OneCart to offer a delivery service that is fast, flexible and convenient. With OneCart, you can schedule a delivery on a day or time that suits you. The app delivers from 9am to 10pm.

Zulzi is a delivery grocery platform with a wide selection of products such as fresh food, household items, liquor and chilled drinks. This app offers delivery in just 15 minutes. It delivers from 6am till 10pm daily.

Pick n Pay ASAP! is a grocery delivery app that offers a same-day delivery service and delivers your order within 60 minutes. This app allows customers to order from 8am with a cut-off time for orders at 3pm.

Various Checkers stores in South Africa offer same-day grocery delivery within 60 minutes through their Checkers Sixty60 app. Operating hours for the app are 8am till 5pm daily.

MrD Food is a delivery app that has partnered with Pick n Pay and Takealot. It also consists of various restaurants like McDonald’s, KFC, and Nandos. The app offers same-day delivery and delivers within a 60-minute time frame. MrD Food operates from 8am to 10pm daily.

While convenience, speed and the ever-changing dynamics of technology are the driving forces behind this trend, the Covid-19 pandemic has also played a role in how people prefer to do their grocery shopping.

Before the lockdown, going to a physical grocery store to shop for produce was the norm until the public was restricted from being outside for necessities such as shopping for essentials.

According to a research study by the National Library of Medicine (Bridges E, Fowler K. Grocery shopping before, during, and after the Pandemic: A Qualitative Study), grocery shopping behaviour changed during the pandemic.

Before Covid-19, most people preferred the traditional way of shopping with human interaction, and during the pandemic, more consumers grew fond of online shopping.

While lockdown may be a thing of the past, the convenience of having groceries delivered to your doorsteps remains the preferred way of shopping and now it has been taken a step further with late-night deliveries.