If you could take one thing back
“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it” — Seneca
Reading a quote like this really makes you stop in your tracks and wonder: “Am I spending my time in the way I really want to spend it?”
At some point, maybe you’ll look back at your days and see the routines that surreptitiously took a few minutes here, an hour there and wonder, because, with a longer view, the numbers add up. A few hours a week doing laundry, a few days a year spent in traffic…some of that time you’ll surely wish to take back.
Now, think about the time you spend walking up and down supermarket aisles. Making your way through a shopping list and finding what you’re looking for, only to debate over which product to buy.
Like when you hold up two bottles of laundry detergent to read through the latest innovations touted on the labels and wonder whether the upgrade in performance is worth the price. At long last, you make a decision and look at the next item on your list. Mixed peppercorns.
When was the last time you bought them? The grinder only recently ran out and you can’t remember where the spice section is. You wish you could just hit “search” and find it! After locating an attendant, and the right aisle, you’re confronted with another time-absorbing decision: which peppercorns are the best buy?
We need food to live but we do not need to live for food
On average, we spend more than two hours a week shopping for groceries (and some of us up to five!). It takes time to drive, park and even just to walk to the supermarket. And once you’re inside, everything is laid out so you spend more time there, so that you buy more products.
Convenience and saving time are steadily becoming more important than only saving money. As consumers around the world become increasingly cash-rich and time-poor, we look to spend our time on experiences that are truly meaningful; on family and friends not on trivial tasks that don’t add joy to our lives.
Shopping as a pleasure or a chore?
On a Saturday morning, you may take a gander through a local market and choose cheese with the help of a cheerful farmer. It’s a journey of discovery to learn about the varieties on offer and it gives you joy. After finding out about the special fermentation process that gives a unique taste to the cheese you bought, you feel like you learned something and go home truly satisfied with your find.
On the other hand, there’s the purely utilitarian shopping experience. The routine shopping you do for regular items that are part of your weekly stock: milk, yoghurt, bread, cornflakes, bananas. A somewhat mind-numbing experience, that is virtually the same week in and week out.
If you could trust someone to do all of that shopping for you — the routine, joyless kind — would you let them? If you could save the time and the hassle and tell someone exactly what you needed and when, would you gladly offload that trip to the grocery store? Letting you take back a few hours in your week.
Picnic: the service that buys you time for free
Picnic, the supermarket that fits in your pocket, might just be the fix for this modern yet universal (and increasingly acute) problem. The app is optimized to save you time. With a simple yet elegant shopping process, groceries are ordered within minutes. And next day delivery in a precise 20-minute window means you never have to hang around for an order.
Unlike similar services, Picnic is accessible to all consumers. Delivery is free and there’s a minimum order value of only 25 EUR. Giving everyone the chance to get back some of their precious time and put it towards the things that they love. The future of grocery shopping has just gotten one step closer.
“Life is long if you know how to use it.” — Seneca
