MilkRun, the super fast local grocery delivery service is to close by the end of the week according to a report by the AFR.
Ultrafast delivery company MilkRun will close its doors and make all staff and riders redundant, marking an abrupt end for the company which raised one of the biggest early-stage rounds in Australian venture capital history.
The company’s founder, Dany Milham, told staff MilkRun would be shutting down by the end of the week, blaming worsening economic conditions, in an email seen by this masthead on Tuesday.
I live in an inner suburb of Melbourne where MilkRun established itself in the city early in its life. I signed up for the app at the time. In my letterbox and by email I regularly received offers. I never used it and, curiously, deleted the app only two days ago.
MilkRun and similar services always felt to me like a solution in search of a problem. I am never going to play to have a couple of grocery items delivered within 10 minutes. I can walk or drive and buy them myself with greater choice options and, often better pricing – and all within 10 minutes.
This story is of interest to newsagents with other services able to delivery what we sell locally, and quickly. The nature of our typical product mix is such that there are customers for urgent need delivery of, for example, stationery, birthday cards and even gifts. The same services are available to newsagents. Through Uber, Menulog and others. And, of course, many newsagents have infrastructure to enable to offer a direct service, and some have done so for many years.
While I MilkRun management and some analysts will point to economic conditions as a reason for the closure, I really do this it was a solution looking for a problem.
Good on to the folks behind MilkRun for having a crack. Maybe another time …