It’s almost 2 weeks since I started using Glovo, a mobile app that enables on-demand delivery services for all sorts of scenarios. I even wrote a blog a post of my first impressions of the same here and I haven’t looked back ever since.

As I enter my second week of a Glovo-enabled lifestyle, I have better sense of what is great about it and why it has the disruptive potential to digitally upgrade your lifestyle. Indeed, for me, in the same way that taxi hailing mobile apps changed my lifestyle, I now ‘get it’ as to how delivery apps like Glovo are essentially doing the same thing for loads of people, in Kenya, and beyond.

To recap, Glovo is currently only available in Nairobi in Westlands, Parklands, Lavington Kilimani, Upper Hill, Gigiri and Muthaiga but is fast expanding to other locations. That being said, what is clear to me is that there are a number of key reasons why I think Glovo has a decent chance to become a major success in Kenya.

Glovo Is Ridiculously Affordable

The Glovo on-demand delivery service is priced very competitively. The least you can get charged is Kes. 50.00 and the most is Kes. 100.00. This is for the actual delivery service and NOT the products you may have ordered via Glovo.

I have been using courier and delivery services in Nairobi for a good number of years and I am not aware of any delivery service – online or offline that charges such low rates. The potential from this perspective is crazy. I can predict that office messengers could lose their jobs and traditional couriers could see dent in their businesses from this perspective.

Quite Possibly, You May Never Need To Go To A Supermarket, Ever, Again

The Glovo mobile app, unlike many other delivery apps is able to support a broad range of use cases and is not a singularly focussed on just one thing as is the case with many available delivery apps in Kenya. So, for instance, using the marketplace feature, you can do your supermarket shopping at Naivas supermarkets via the app.

This means that from your phone, while your hustling at work, you could essentially do a good portion of your groceries for the week and then have them delivered to your office or home. This, for me, is mind-blowing in that Glovo can handle all the logistical hassles and take the effort out of regular and mundane tasks supermarket shopping.

If you consider how much we value time these days above all else, and when you overlay how successful taxi hailing services have become in Kenya, it’s a no brainer that Glovo can become indispensable for pretty much everyone in Kenya who can afford the service to handle stuff like shopping.

‘Anything’ Delivery Feature For Pretty Much, Yes, Anything!

One of the interesting aspects of using Glovo is that it has an ‘Anything’ delivery option built right in. This ‘open-ended’ aspect of Glovo enables the service to pick and drop literally anything you may need via the mobile app.

So, in a nutshell, as opposed to being limited to range of vendors or restaurant or any particular kind of offering, Glovo can do it all for anything and anywhere provided the area is covered within the delivery range.

Do bear in mind that means that Glovo will actually handle payments for you (within limits) to pick and drop whatever you order from this perspective. This could include ‘anything’ so imagine all the very broad range of scenarios you can realise using this one feature alone.

Glovo Could Make You Fire Your Courier ‘Guy’ or Company

Courier businesses in Nairobi run the whole gamut, on-demand or via more traditional methods at pretty much every price point. From this perspective, it can be a nightmare figuring out which one is the best fit and also if what you have already is really(?) working for you.

The idea that Glovo will charge you Kes. 100.00 to have something picked from your location and delivered to another location via its courier offering could be a game changer for many people and businesses in Nairobi and further down the toad in Kenya.

Something tells me that this will be disruptive on many levels for small scale e-commerce merchants for instance. Glovo could act as the ‘last mile’ for many small businesses that would otherwise be unable to either create or pay for a much more elaborate and expensive on-demand delivery service.