When the pandemic broke out last year, we started to hit the keyboards for groceries, instead of rushing to the supermarkets to stockpile. The pandemic took online shopping to a whole new level of functional, while completely changing our perspective on shopping.
Personally, I prefer online shopping than physical store shopping, as it saves me the hassle of scouring the aisles for hours and loading up the car. Plus, there are more players in the fray now, so you don't have to limit yourself to a certain supermarket/ website/ app.
Providore founded by Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardena and three others from varied industries, sources good quality products from a selected collection of reliable suppliers and delivers them to your front door – carefully and safely. By merging the best of technology and retail, it's one of the very few e-commerce platforms in the country that functions to its full potential. You can access it via www.providore.shop.
While offering a satisfying customer experience, Providore highlights itself for a number of good things. So here are 9 reasons why you must do your groceries with them.
Massive Variety
It's one of the biggest grocery spreads we've ever seen. The Fruit and Vegetable section is packed with the freshest produce, while the Meats & Seafood list has an impressive variety. They sell all sorts of meats, including chicken, beef, mutton, pork, lamb, duck, cured meats and sausages, as well as seafood for your curry and grilling needs.
It's a convenient option to purchase some good quality, imported cheese, and also the local ones. Their dairy collection further extends to different forms of milk (powdered, UHT, lactose-free, flavoured), yoghurt, butter and spreads.
The Bakery items section features many loaves of bread and buns – from usual kadey paan to multi-seed brown bread. These are freshly baked on order from customers to guarantee the quality and freshness.
Under Providore's Food Cupboard, you will notice a whole array of breakfast cereals, beverages, confectionery, nuts, seeds, snacks, sauces, condiments, spices, baking ingredients, noodles, pasta, oils, canned and bottled goodies, biscuits, tea, coffee and different pulses (rice, dal etc.).
On the Household section, you will be able to find many products related to laundry and cleaning, toiletries, personal care and hygiene, handwash, sanitisers and even magazines.
All these, are categorised on the website with sub-categories, so it's quite easy to browse through them. Plus, they include both local and imported products so you've got a lot to choose from.
Schedule Delivery
You can schedule the delivery to fit your busy daily routine. They have time slots available from 8.00 AM to 8.00 PM and can be booked up to 4 weeks in advance.
Since you have multiple different time slots to choose from you can make sure to receive your order at the timeslot convenient to you. So the deliveries won’t happen while you are busy on a zoom call.
Many Artisan Products
This is probably my favourite thing about Providore. Prior to writing this article, I spent many good hours browsing through the shelves of this online store, and I was quite impressed by their range of artisan products.
For example, simply look at the Ice Cream selection under Frozen goods. Along with the regular brands, they've managed to include products from Isle of Gelato, Frozen and King Cone Ice Cream ². Such artisanal products are hard to come by in your usual supermarket experience.
You can also find ready-to-eat meals, cakes and many other products from some of your favourite cafes and restaurants, such as Cafe Kumbuk, The Cake Factory, Ceylan Creperie and Skrumptious.
Supporting small-scale businesses, vendors and producers is a wonderful gesture in a time like that, and in order to do so, Providore has curated a special program – the Artisan Program. For more details, you can contact them via their website, phone number – 0774074074, or email – customerservice@providore.shop.
Safe Delivery
Providore follows strict hygiene and safety measurements to minimise the spread of COVID-19. From its employees to partners to suppliers to third parties, everyone adheres to these measurements, every step of the way. They have enhanced sanitising, social distancing, collecting data to support testing and tracing, and the masks and gloves are mandatory throughout the entire process. With continuous monitoring and reviewing, Providore makes sure to update or implement safety measurements whenever it's needed.
High Quality
Artisan or formal trade, each supplier on the Providore platform goes through a continuous screening process, to ensure consistency, reliability and quality of the products. It also guarantees that these products meet their customer expectations and quality demand. They pay extra attention to safeguarding them, from the moment they arrive at their warehouse, to properly handling and storing them, and later on, dispatching them for delivery.
Wide Delivery Coverage
Providore covers many cities in Colombo and its immediate suburbs in their delivery service. This includes locations within Colombo 1 – 15, Dehiwala, Kohuwala, Attidiya, Kalubowila, Mount Lavinia, Moratuwa, Nawala, Nugegoda, Rajagiriya, Kotte, Battaramulla, Thalawatugoda, Pelawatte and Koswatte.
Quick Delivery
Did you know that you can get your groceries within just 2 hours when you shop with Providore?
Yep! With Providore's Express Delivery, you can get your orders within 2 hours of checkout. Such orders are processed from 9.00 AM to 6.00 PM for delivery on the same day, every day, but if the order was placed after 6.00 PM, it will be processed the next day. Furthermore, the Express Delivery option is not applicable for perishable items.
Convenient Payment Methods
Providore accepts online payments, and payment on delivery either by cash or card, all for your convenience.
Interesting Discounts
By teaming up with local banks, Providore intends to help its customers to save a buck at these tough times. At the moment, they have discounts running for Seylan Bank credit cards and Standard Chartered debit and credit cards. Moreover, they offer flash deals for your everyday products. Click here to see the range.
User-friendly Interface
They've got a clean, neat, simple website. It actually makes you want to shop with them, because it's so easy on the eye, and the ordering steps are not complicated.
Further, providore.shop app is available on both the Apple store and Play store and you get a 15% welcome discount on your first order through the app. Just use APP15 on checkout.
They’ve got this cool feature “My Shopping List” with which you can save your regular grocery needs and use it when you shop. You just need to add the quantities you need and hit order. It takes only 10 minutes or less to do your regular grocery shopping on Providore with “My Shopping List”.
For more details, click here.
