They started to establish it in Singapore last 2015. Two years after, they finally made their way to the Filipino doorsteps. Here comes your newest grocer and food delivery service website and app Honestbee.
I already saw some teasers from them as early last May. Thru a series of their Facebook Live videos a few days, they just had a media launch but it was not still unclear to us so with the help of one of their execs Marlo Lucio, he helped me out on the must-know info and als shared some suggestions too
There are two categories on their service for the PH market: grocery and food. On their website at www.honestbee.ph, the grocery is the only one available hile on the app, both the grocery and food sections can be accessed. In the grocery section, the headliners are Robinsons Supermartket, Robinsons Selections and Fresh Options Meatshop plus you can also see stores that sell organic food and even wine. In food, you can see a variety of restos from Makati and BGC area.
I dug more on the technical side of things. The website worked fine so far on Microsft Edge and Opera browsers and the mobile app loads easily. The technical team was actually in their home country but their PH team can handle those future tech-related problems on the app. On the mobile app, they made sure that it will eat that much mobile data as they required to have at around 100 kb for the pics of the items.
There were some confusion on the coverage of Honestbee online. I finally got a clarification that it depends. In the grocery section, they can service Makati, BGC, Taguig, Pasay and Quezon City (Cubao and UP area). In food, they can accomodate orders in BGC in Makati
On the delivery, ordering food has no minimum purchase but there is Php 99 delivery fee. In the grocery, ordering less than Php 1,500 will have an additional Php 99 delivery charge and Php 99 for the concierge fee as you will have your own virtual shopper who will be your eyes and nose in purchasing food as they are strict in terms on standards from expiry date (they do not accept items from 3 days before expiry except for perishable goods), to the condition of the canned goods and even the weight of the item. If you order from Php 1,500 and up, you will only need to pay for the concierge fee
More pro tips that I uncovered that will help you to made your purchase easily. They accept payments thru cash on delivery, credit cards (either the postpaid or prepaid version), Paymaya and GCash Mastercard which is pretty convenient. At first, it made me shake my head that you cannot set-up the credit card info before you shop (as before my conversation with him, I have no idea on the type/s of credit cards that they honor) . On purchasing items, they follow on the increment that was indicated in the app (for example: there is a 500 grams of beef of mechado cut, you can only buy by 1 kilo, 1.5 kilos, 2 kilos and so on or a 250 gram of fruit, it goes by 500, 750 grams and so on). In terms of stock availability, they are proud that it is on real-time as it is quite critical if an item is on limited stock. In case that an item is not available while your order is on process, you will be receiving a text about it and the possible subsitutions or you can recommend another item as long as it is available on the app.
In terms of app compatibility, Honestbee can run from Android 4.4 Kitkat and up. There is no definite info yet on iOS or even if the app is up and ready for the recently released iOS 11. On future plans, they are targetting to expand their services with more partners and in Cebu.
I mentioned that this is only the part 1 as I will gonna test the app in the next few days for my experience in my second part of this blog post about Honestbee Philippines website and mobile app.
I already saw some teasers from them as early last May. Thru a series of their Facebook Live videos a few days, they just had a media launch but it was not still unclear to us so with the help of one of their execs Marlo Lucio, he helped me out on the must-know info and als shared some suggestions too
There are two categories on their service for the PH market: grocery and food. On their website at www.honestbee.ph, the grocery is the only one available hile on the app, both the grocery and food sections can be accessed. In the grocery section, the headliners are Robinsons Supermartket, Robinsons Selections and Fresh Options Meatshop plus you can also see stores that sell organic food and even wine. In food, you can see a variety of restos from Makati and BGC area.
I dug more on the technical side of things. The website worked fine so far on Microsft Edge and Opera browsers and the mobile app loads easily. The technical team was actually in their home country but their PH team can handle those future tech-related problems on the app. On the mobile app, they made sure that it will eat that much mobile data as they required to have at around 100 kb for the pics of the items.
There were some confusion on the coverage of Honestbee online. I finally got a clarification that it depends. In the grocery section, they can service Makati, BGC, Taguig, Pasay and Quezon City (Cubao and UP area). In food, they can accomodate orders in BGC in Makati
On the delivery, ordering food has no minimum purchase but there is Php 99 delivery fee. In the grocery, ordering less than Php 1,500 will have an additional Php 99 delivery charge and Php 99 for the concierge fee as you will have your own virtual shopper who will be your eyes and nose in purchasing food as they are strict in terms on standards from expiry date (they do not accept items from 3 days before expiry except for perishable goods), to the condition of the canned goods and even the weight of the item. If you order from Php 1,500 and up, you will only need to pay for the concierge fee
More pro tips that I uncovered that will help you to made your purchase easily. They accept payments thru cash on delivery, credit cards (either the postpaid or prepaid version), Paymaya and GCash Mastercard which is pretty convenient. At first, it made me shake my head that you cannot set-up the credit card info before you shop (as before my conversation with him, I have no idea on the type/s of credit cards that they honor) . On purchasing items, they follow on the increment that was indicated in the app (for example: there is a 500 grams of beef of mechado cut, you can only buy by 1 kilo, 1.5 kilos, 2 kilos and so on or a 250 gram of fruit, it goes by 500, 750 grams and so on). In terms of stock availability, they are proud that it is on real-time as it is quite critical if an item is on limited stock. In case that an item is not available while your order is on process, you will be receiving a text about it and the possible subsitutions or you can recommend another item as long as it is available on the app.
In terms of app compatibility, Honestbee can run from Android 4.4 Kitkat and up. There is no definite info yet on iOS or even if the app is up and ready for the recently released iOS 11. On future plans, they are targetting to expand their services with more partners and in Cebu.
I mentioned that this is only the part 1 as I will gonna test the app in the next few days for my experience in my second part of this blog post about Honestbee Philippines website and mobile app.
