Skip to content
Grocery and provisions

Set your zones, set your minimum, pick to a list.

Sell provisions in the pack a customer actually buys, decide which areas you deliver to and what a basket has to reach before you will, and pick every order from one queue instead of a stack of threads.

14-day free trial. No card required.

crate.shop/admin

How do I sell groceries online?

Put your range in one catalogue, priced by the unit or the pack a customer actually buys rather than by the case you bought it in. Decide which areas you deliver to and what a basket has to reach before the trip is worth making, so somebody outside a zone is offered collection instead of a delivery you would have had to cancel. Orders arrive in one list with the address, the slot and any substitution the customer has already agreed to, which makes picking a list rather than a negotiation from the aisle. Stock is counted once across your store, your chat orders and your counter, so a case that sells out stops selling everywhere at the same moment.

How do you start selling groceries?

Getting started

Four steps, in order. Each one is a screen you can open on the first day, not a project.

Price by the unit you actually sell

Add each item in the pack or weight a customer buys it in, so a single tin, a bag and a crate are three prices rather than one guess. Anything sold loose can say plainly how it is measured, which removes the question before it is asked.

Draw your delivery zones

Set the areas you serve and what each one costs. A customer outside every zone is offered collection rather than a delivery you would have had to phone about, and the price they see is the price for their street.

Set a minimum basket

Decide what a basket has to reach before a delivery option is offered at all. It is the one setting that stops a single item order costing more to deliver than it earns, and it does the arguing so that you do not have to.

Pick from one list

Work the orders queue rather than the chat. Each order shows the items, the slot, the address and what the customer will accept instead if something is out, and the numbers behind it tell you which lines are actually moving.

What is different about selling groceries

What is different here

Every kind of product has a detail that decides whether the software fits. These are the ones that decide it here.

The zone is part of the product

A grocery business is defined by how far it will go and for how much. Holding zones as data means the store quotes the right price to the right street and declines the streets you do not serve, instead of you discovering the distance after the basket has been paid for.

A minimum basket is the margin

Delivery has a fixed cost and a basket of one tin does not cover it. Setting the floor in the store rather than in a message you have to send means the customer either adds to the basket or takes collection, and neither of those outcomes is an argument you have to have.

Substitutions are agreed before you pick, not from the aisle

Something is always out. Capturing what a customer will accept instead at the moment they order is the difference between a five second swap and a phone call from the shelf, and because it is written on the order a second picker makes the same call you would have.

Your buyers are already in a thread.

Where you sell

A great deal of grocery ordering happens in a thread: a list typed out, a total agreed, an address repeated. Put a catalogue behind that thread so the list becomes a basket with real prices on it, and the address, the slot and the total stop being retyped every week.

In your market that usually means Your store, Instagram and In person.

Card, Apple Pay, Google Pay and bank transfer.

Getting paid

Take card, Apple Pay, Google Pay and bank transfer, so an order is settled or explicitly not before anybody sets off. Automatic payouts to your bank. Where paying on delivery is normal in your market it stays available, and the amount owed is recorded on the order rather than left to the person carrying the bags to remember.

Money from card sales lands in your bank account on a rolling two-day schedule. Nothing to claim, nothing to withdraw.

  • Card
  • Apple Pay
  • Google Pay
  • Bank transfer

How it reaches the buyer.

Delivery

Each order carries its zone, its shipping charge and its slot, so the day sorts itself into runs rather than into a list somebody has to reorder by hand. Collection orders sit in the same queue and are closed off at the counter, which keeps one record of everything that left the shop.

  • Set your shipping rates by zone, by weight or as one flat rate, and the checkout works them out for the buyer instead of you quoting in a thread.
  • Offer pickup beside delivery. A buyer who is nearby collects, and the order still goes through the same queue and the same stock count.
  • Print the order, mark it packed, mark it sent. The buyer gets the update without you writing a message.
  • Every order from every channel lands in one queue, so nothing is fulfilled twice and nothing is missed.

What it costs.

One subscription covers the store, the catalog, the order queue, the customer records and the counter. There is no separate charge for selling in chat, and no charge per kind of product.

Priced and paid in US dollars. Every plan opens with a free trial and no card.

Selling groceries, answered

Can I charge different delivery prices for different areas?

Yes. Each zone carries its own charge, and the customer sees the price for their address before they pay rather than hearing it afterwards.

Can I refuse to deliver below a certain basket size?

Yes. Each delivery option carries its own smallest and largest worthwhile order. Below the floor it is simply not offered, so the customer adds to the basket or takes collection, and no order arrives that you would have had to turn down.

Can I sell the same item by the unit and by the case?

Yes. Each pack size is its own price and its own count, and both draw down the stock you actually hold rather than an estimate of it.

What happens when something is out while I am picking?

The substitution the customer agreed to at checkout is on the order. If they agreed to none, the order says so, and the item is removed and refunded rather than swapped and argued about later.

Can customers pay on delivery?

Where that is normal in your market it is offered alongside card, Apple Pay, Google Pay or bank transfer, and the amount owed is recorded on the order so the record is not the driver's memory.

Does a chat order draw down the same stock as a store order?

Yes. There is one count behind every channel, so a case sold in a message stops being available on the store in the same moment.

Selling something else?

Nearby

The same platform underneath, told in the language of the thing you make.

Start selling with your zones and your minimum set.

Free for 14 days, no card required. Draw your delivery areas, set the floor, and pick your first order from a list.

Start free