July the 20th, 2021 - Croatia's grocery delivery services have experienced a huge increase ever since the pandemic struck and people were in self-isolation with restaurants and the like closed. In fact, grocery delivery services in Croatia are about to become even better, with the country among nine EU nations in which extra fast delivery will soon be made readily available.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Sergej Novosel Vuckovic writes, the Republic of Croatia will be one of the nine EU markets (along with Portugal, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Sweden) where groceries can be ordered through the Bolt Market service. This is a new feature of the Bolt Food application, the Estonian mobility platform Bolt, one of the European leaders in the urban transport segment (includes on-demand driving and delivery).

The Bolt Market service was successfully presented as a pilot project in its home country of Estonia, and will be available in these countries by the end of the year. The feature of the service is the connectivity of grocery delivery with ''dark stores'', places for the fast pick-up of goods, and customers, in order to have the order delivered to them as quickly as possible, within just fifteen minutes, according to Bolt.

"The synergy of food and grocery delivery services will enable Bolt to manage its business more efficiently and provide better customer service," explains Bolt, which will create new teams of employees from five different positions due to the new service.

The appearance of Bolt Market in Croatia is good news for local users, because Bolt Food has only existed in Zagreb and Split since May 2020. However, it has since established itself as one of the favourite food and grocery delivery services.

"Given that the service was presented in Croatia a little over a year ago, we can be satisfied with the results so far. In the first six months of this year, we achieved growth of 97%, and in June this year we closed with 34 times more orders compared to June 2020,'' says Tomislav Lukacevic, the director of Bolt in Croatia. Due to the growing number of deliveries, they're in constant search of new suppliers.

As for Bolt's share in the on-demand driving segment in Croatia, several thousand active drivers are hired per month, but they will also need more owing to increased demand for such food and grocery delivery services.

Dmitri Liberman, vice president of the business delivery vertical at Bolt, is also satisfied with his business conducted here in Croatia. He referred to Eurostat data for 2020, according to which 55% of Croatian citizens made purchases online, mostly clothes, food from restaurants and groceries, revealing the benefits of grocery delivery services to your doorstep during a pandemic.

"Even when the pandemic ends, grocery delivery services will continue to be used, so Croatia certainly has the potential to introduce the Bolt Market,'' stated Liberman.

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First came Wolt, Glovo and Pauza with their distinctive and bright bags full of food, and now comes Bolt Food with a green one that is sure to stand out on the streets of the Croatian capital city.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 19th of May, 2020, as of today, Bolt has launched a brand new food delivery service, Bolt Food, in the City of Zagreb. During this promotional period, delivery will be free for all restaurants within a three-kilometre radius, so users will only pay for the meals ordered.

In order to order food, the user must download the Bolt Food app to their smartphone, and in it they will then see the available restaurants and their respective menus. Before confirming a food order, the price and estimated delivery time will be displayed in the application.

As a means of payment, the user must enter their bank card details when using the Bolt Food application in order for delivery to be completely contactless, thus ensuring safety in the coronavirus era by removing the need for cash transactions between users and those delivering the food.

The user can also specify in the application the exact location where the delivery person can leave the food upon arrival if they want to make sure that absolutely zero physical contact of any kind occurs during the exchange of the items orders. As stated, currently, delivery from restaurants located up to three kilometres from the customer's location/address is free, and each additional kilometre comes with an extra charge of just four kuna.

It is currently possible to order food from more than seventy restaurants in Zagreb through Bolt Food, and Bolt wants to continue to add new restaurants across Zagreb to the app every day. Currently, delivery is possible in the area north of the Sava river, and the delivery area will be expanded regularly.

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