Up until recently, I relished shopping for groceries. I’m the type of person who has a favourite cheesemonger, butcher, green grocer, and bakery. I plan weekend trips around having breakfast at a farmer’s market before adventuring to specialty shops in the distant burbs. Come COVID-19, my peripatetic grocery ways needed to be amended. No longer was hitting a half-dozen little shops feasible. You see, I’m also high risk (bad lungs), so it’s not just that I want to try and lump my shopping into fewer trips, it’s also that I just can’t go out at all. I haven’t so much as gone for a walk in 27 days.

I’ve never been enticed by online grocery shopping. I love to fondle mangos before committing, and I almost never make shopping lists. I shop by sales and impulse. Recently, circumstance forced me into my first online grocery buying attempt. I decided to try Inabuggy, one of the biggest online shopping platforms in Canada. I chose them mostly because they had a delivery slot available.

The day of my scheduled delivery, a Slavic-accented fellow calls to let me know that the store is out of almost every item I want, and as I selected “do not replace,” he wants to know if I want to cancel my order. “No, no, no, I’m easy,” I tell him, please substitute whatever, use your discretion, we just need food—I must’ve clicked that by accident. “I’ve already been waiting an hour to get into the store,” he tells me, “this delivery might be a bit late.”

“I’ll tip you extra,” I guiltily exclaim, but truthfully, I had no idea the stores had gotten so bad. “No need, I’m one of the owners of Inabuggy,” he responds. Later I’ll learn that he was an early investor in Inabuggy and he’s an ex-Soviet weapons’ engineer with PhD-educated children (one is a scientist researching a cure for COVID-19). It will have taken him almost four hours to deliver my groceries. He’ll refuse my tip and when I ask to interview him for this piece, he’ll pass the torch to Julian Gleizer, Inabuggy’s founder and CEO.

Here, I chatted with Gleizer about playing pandemic catch-up (he’s had to decuple his workforce with zero notice, which is why founders are pitching in). I also pick the CEO’s brain about online shopping tips and trends.

Can you tell me a bit about the company, who you are and how Inabuggy came about?

We launched in April 2015, so it’s our fifth anniversary this month, and we now have 50 retailers on our platform, which spans from B.C. to Quebec. The idea came about when I was working 16-hour days, had a new baby and also had to get groceries for my dad. That’s when I realized that there was a grocery gap in the e-commerce space, and online grocery delivery was something busy people like myself could really benefit from.

How has the pandemic affected your business?

It was like a switch was flipped overnight—it caught us by surprise. At the beginning of the year we had 100 shoppers, but we’ve had to hire hundreds more to keep up with demand. It’s overwhelming in terms of volume. We’re going to have to hire thousands of people to make sure we can keep up.

How busy are you?

We’re filling a couple of thousand orders a day right now, but we’re looking to fulfill thousands more on a daily basis.

Who was your average customer prior to the pandemic and who’s using Inabuggy now?

Prior to the pandemic, we were a white-glove service used by people looking for convenience. These days, everyone is using our service. We used to offer delivery in as little as an hour, now we’re booking 10, 11 days out. Online grocery shopping isn’t just about convenience anymore, it’s also about safety.

What challenges are your shoppers encountering?

The line ups! It can take two hours (or more!) just to get into some stores. Inside, everything is slower, too, because of social distancing. If someone is looking at the fruit, then our shoppers have to wait until they move before they can grab your bananas. Another issue is that many of the grocery stores are cleaned out—many of the shelves are bare. It’s almost impossible to get cleaning supplies right now. They sell out first thing in the morning even though many of the stores have instituted buying limits per household. The canned goods are also pretty much sold out, too.

What buying trends have you been noticing these days and how does that compare to how people used to shop?

Before, people were buying more fresh fruit, vegetables, prepared meals and snacks. These days, people are stocking up on comfort foods (tons of pasta) and essentials like milk, eggs, dairy products, and flour.

I hear it’s really hard to find flour these days, do you think it’s because everyone’s home baking to pass the time?

No, people are purchasing 25-kilogram bags of flour. Prior to this, people would maybe buy 2.5-kilogram bags. To me, purchasing in such large volumes indicates fear and insecurity.

Have you observed any peculiar shopping behaviours prompted by the pandemic? 

It would be the hoarding. Prior to the pandemic, our typical basket size was about $230. Now, it’s pushing over $600.

Can you give our readers some online grocery shopping tips?

I would suggest that customers place their orders once a week, as opposed to one large monthly order for $1,000. Retailers are doing their best to restock, so if you order more frequently you’re likely to get what you want eventually. Plus, this avoids hoarding. I would also say, purchase only what you need, don’t hoard.

Is there a better time or place to shop?

Downtown is the busiest pocket of Toronto at the moment, but everywhere is pretty busy. It used to be mornings were busier, but now it doesn’t make a difference.