The late-night grocery-item delivery service, The Lazy Grocer, is hoping that you're simply too tired, overworked and, well, lazy to want to run to Fresh Grocer or WaWa to nab that bag of chips and salsa at 2 a.m.
Launched in early November by two current Wharton students, senior Raj Parikh and junior Akash Shah, The Lazy Grocer offers food, drink and "essential" items for sale in its roughly 23 categories.
The idea was born last spring in the duo's Management 230 class, "Entrepreneurship", where they were tasked with developing a business concept and writing a business plan.
After finishing the project, both Parikh and Shah decided the business could actually be viable and that it was worth a shot to try starting it in the fall.
"College is probably the best time to start a business, since it really mitigates the possibility of failure," said Parikh. "If it fails, you are going to graduate anyway and move on."
Working with web developers in India - where Shah was studying over the summer - to develop a sleek site for the service, the two opened for business on Nov. 14.
"There were plenty of customers on day one, and now a lot of our business is repeat customers," said Parikh.
They broke even earlier than they had anticipated, he added.
The early success of the service also led the service's founders to add another person to the team, Wharton sophomore Ronak Amin, in order to sustain the service when they graduate.
Amin indicated that his long-term plans include focusing on expanding the service at Penn while eventually rolling it out at other college campuses, starting with local schools like Drexel University and University of the Sciences.
Having recently added frozen meals and ice cream for sale, Amin pointed out that The Lazy Grocer distinguishes itself by carrying some items that the Fresh Grocer does not.
With Dunkaroos ranking as the service's current best-selling item, Amin said, "It's probably the top selling food because it's the best snack you haven't had since elementary school."
The service has garnered positive reviews from those who have used it.
When it's late at night and College sophomore Griffin Gould is hungry, "I got WaWa, FroGro and McDonald's, and that's it," he said. "Lazy Grocer came and changed everything by being just as cheap and twice as easy," he said.
The three co-owners also plan on launching Penn Smokes in the near future, which will follow the same model as The Lazy Grocer but instead will offer cigarettes, cigars, tobacco and hookah supplies late at night.
