Botteega is a platform that makes it easy to do grocery shopping from traditional city markets, local shops and artisanal producers.

Project Information

Botteega

Grant agreement ID: 743554

DOI

10.3030/743554

Project closed

EC signature date 2 November 2016

Start date 1 December 2016

End date 31 May 2017

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Europe In A Changing World - Inclusive, Innovative And Reflective Societies

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

BOTTEEGA SRL
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Botteega (Botteega is a platform that makes it easy to do grocery shopping from traditional city markets, local shops and artisanal producers.)

Reporting period: 2016-12-01 to 2017-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The Botteega platform aims to bring a new layer of technology to traditional food & grocery vendors, helping them to increase sales and reach new buyers. The project has been designed to create many positive outcomes for the local community: provide easy access to fresh, healthy, artisanal food; keep neighbourhoods alive; support local producers and avoid countryside abandonment; promote among tourists the knowledge of typical products; protect the environment through a lower use of resources for food transportation/stocking/packaging.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The feasibility study has been important to verify our hypotheses. On one side, the problems of small merchants: fragmentation, low adoption of digital tools, lack of resources to innovate their daily routines and to face the increasing competition from e-commerce players and big retail chains. On the other side, buyers have become increasingly confident into buying food online, especially through mobile devices and with same-day delivery. The rise of popularity of healthy/organic/local food experiences is driving buyers to online shops for special/gourmet products, but the most authentic providers like traditional/farmer markets and small grocers are still untouched by this wave. What is important for consumers is to find an online platform that guarantees high-quality of food and service while being a pleasure to use. The buying experience has to include some of the aspects of the traditional offline shopping in local markets: super-fresh and artisanal food, personalised service and the feeling of being in contact with the heart of the local community. We have successfully presented our solution to local public administrations in Rome, Turin and Cagliari, important stakeholders that manage local markets and are responsible for urban planning. The outcomes of this meetings have been positive and there is a strong interest in our solution that will be the base for future collaborations.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Thanks to all the feedbacks gathered and the analysis done, we have started to redesign the new version of Botteega to meet both the business needs of small merchants and the requests of buyers. In the meanwhile, we have worked to grow our community of users through online promotion, social media, newsletters, events and content marketing. We are planning an official launch with adequate promotional support when the new platform will be available, by the end of 2017.

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