FODI - Bringing a digital grocery store to life with dedicated developers

Background

Fodi was founded in 2016 with the ambition to change the way people shop for groceries. Their digital grocery store makes it possible to quickly and easily order groceries for free home delivery. Goods are sourced locally from nearby stores, with a current offering of 10,000 organic and locally produced goods.  

Leading up to launch, however, Fodi faced a problem. With only three months to go, their small development team needed extra support getting the platform ready on time. They also needed help creating solutions that would allow them to expand operations in the future. Fodi contacted us at Fastdev for assistance. 

Challenge

As they sought to persuade customers to switch to online grocery shopping, one of the challenges Fodi faced was finding a way to make the user experience as convenient as possible while preserving the “local feeling” one might find in physical stores in terms of customer service and locally produced food. Additionally, Fodi’s goal of expanding to serve other areas in Sweden meant that their systems needed to be scalable. More sophisticated solutions needed to be developed that could efficiently and reliably handle primarily suppliers, inventory, and logistics.

Solution

We reinforced Fodi’s team with two competent Fastdev developers who helped to create an article index system and database solution that could handle and display all articles in the web-interface. The backend system was developed as a fully scalable system. The developers also helped create a logistics system that could handle home delivery in the greater Stockholm area.

Additionally, the developers created a recommender system which analyzes the purchase patterns of customers and then recommends items for purchase. They also developed an integrated graphical user interface for back-office data and the inventory and logistics systems, and helped integrate payment solutions and an SMS notification system.

Shoppers can browse goods online by category at their local grocery store, and view weekly deals as well as their most frequent purchases.   

Shoppers can quickly and easily select goods for purchase while maintaining an overview of their shopping cart.

At checkout, shoppers select a day and time for delivery— either same day or at a specific date and time in the future.

Results

With Fastdev developers on their team, Fodi succeeded in launching their platform on time within the scope of the three month deadline. The project was so successful, in fact, that Fodi decided to keep the Fastdev developers onboard and even employ a third. Now as an integrated part of the team, the Fastdev developers continue to assist with ongoing maintenance and improvement of the retail platform. Support that enables Fodi to spend less time making things work and more time and focus on developing and expanding their business to reach new consumers throughout Sweden and beyond.

“Fastdev developers are technically capable,” says Oskar Thiel, Senior Fullstack Developer and Architect at Fodi. “Thanks to their help, we’ve been able to solve complicated problems and provide our customers with quality solutions. We have also been able to provide the rest of our organization with the tools they need to efficiently run the business.”